Jimmy Whitfierce

No Money Mo Problems....the rapper was clearly confused.

2009-06-08T22:13:00.000-07:00

still home. still jobless. i'm trying, but i know i could be trying harder. i had a few interesting conversations tonite that sparked me into writing so late at night. the first one was with my best friend from out at school. he lives in tennesee. he has housing, a starting job (until i find something more ideal for myself) all availble and lined up for me to take the step out there. i just need to do my homework and figure out work visa's. and i want it, so i don't understand why i haven't worked on it yet. when i'm passionate about something i'm usually good with going after it. fitness is a good testament of that. talked to owen a bunch too. most people don't know or like him an awful lot and thats just cause he's different. he always was growing up around here. didn't get along great with people and just didn't feel like this was him here in leamington, so he took a step out in faith. he moved to calgary and is still there, loving it. him and i are strangely alike in many ways. so he's been showin me tough love these days reminding me that i'm stuck, and i'm rotting here in leamington. i'm crippled by my fear and depandance. i'm becoming the precise person i typically speak out against and pity - the person who is stagnant for the sake of comfort even if they know its not their best, or where their heart longs for. i constantly dream and hope to be a person who goes after what excites me. thats all i want. i want to be proactive and willing to step out for what i want, because the act of falling short in that is my best chance of finding regret. no one wants to look back on their life and wonder if they would have lived harder or more ambitious.

i'm realizing as i write and develope this thought that it counters my style of living. i'm implying that i would rather stumble and fail in chasing something grande, than play it safe, protecting myself, and remaining stable. that's just what i've done with my heart and soul. i've protected it at the cost of experiencing tremendous highs and lows. i'm stable. but i'll never experience the truest and purest joys in this state, that i used to know...all in the name of protecting myself from being hurt. and i'm fine with that right now. in another conversation with someone tonite, we were talking about all of this and they asked me "are the highs worth the lows?" i didn't even hesitate in responding yes. i wish i had done certain things differently, of course, but knowing God and his influence on me, and then knowing Jen and the impact that had on my life and heart, i couldn't possibly have answered that it wasn't worth it. even after what i ended up having to deal with. i was obviously surprised at my own response because it contradicts my cause and reasoning for the path i've chosen, right? absolutely. ignorance and distraction. thats the name of the game. this is just another proof. i'm avoiding what i know, to experience what i don't. it'll all be cause for an even more informed stance. perhaps a more positive one down the road. One where i'm capable of loving someone again.

i'm getting stuck. i'm scared. everyday brings me one more day closer to doing something very drastic to get out and shake things up. i need people, i need involvement, i need purpose and the opportunity to excel. i need positive and excited people around me who share in my interests. i need to capture and capitolize on this stage of my life. God help me, i hope it happens...i hope i make it happen.

J.R.

2009-05-31T21:15:00.001-07:00

i've been avoiding the big catchup post since i got home. kept putting it off but i decided i should start writing again even though i'm home. i know there are people who used to read this that aren't regularilly involved in my life.

first, it sucks transitioning from life in colorado. obviously the lifestyle, the activities, and the people are all so terribly different. i was always on the go there and around many people who were spontaneous and fun. its an abnormal life that is disconnected from reality in many ways when you're at bible school. so now i'm home and it just feels like so many people are "stuck". i don't blame them, i was very much there before i left too. you get into routines and habits and complacency and only hang around with the same few people. its comprimising, really. I guess some people like the predictable nature of that life but they look stuck. i'm trying to fight it but i don't know how well i'm doing. i've been avidly job hunting for a month and am still unemplyed. and i mean, i do 4 or 5 resumes a week at least. near the beginning of me getting home i did many more than that. i MIGHT get called for a job at GUESS (a designer clothing store) in Windsor this week but i'm not sure. other than that i have no solid leads. being jobless is problematic for a number of reasons. first, i can't settle down someplace because i don't know if i'm going to be at home or in windsor or wherever. i'd like to join some sport leagues, maybe a gym, and find ways to get involved and network but i can't commit to anywhere yet without work. then of course i'm trying to be as social as possible but EVERYthing costs money, so i'm crippled in many ways for that too. not to mention, most women aren't into men with no money and no job. it just takes the wind out of your sails when you're not moving forward financially toward goals n stuff ya know? so thats the job situation.

most people know this, but i went to florida shortly after i got home. i got hired with my cousin by someone we know to fly down to florida, load up a 25 foot penske truck with furniture and drive back home. all expenses paid, plus some comp. we mostly just drove and lifted furniture but we got one full day to ourselves where we went to sea world's water park and then dinner theatre in the evening. we had fun. it was an interesting experience.

i've been pretty active on the sporting front since i got home. been golfing a few times (i'm plainly in love with that sport), found a new and avid interest in tennis, been skateboarding with the remaining 3 or 4 guys around here who still do it, starting volleyball league next week, and i've already been fishing once this year. probably the best activity so far though was today when i was over at steve's. after we skated we went down to the lake to swim and make a fire. we spotted these huge logs though and did competitive caber tossing for prolly a half hour with the three of us. it was awesome. i took down this weeks competition. actually since we're on the subject, let me tell you about a father-son day i had yesterday. its actually rather funny. its saturday morning and i've got no plans until jake wiebe's big poker tournament that evening, so my dad's like "lets go to the driving range" cause my mom told him to spend more money on enjoying himself. we go hit a big bucket of balls while i'm tryin to give him pointers...it went well. after that he's like "some old dude in the church flys these remote controlled jets as a hobby and i guess they're doin it this afternoon at the Leamington Airport". i'm thinking the same thing as you......you're kidding me right? first of all, the leamington airport seems entirely like a joke to me in and of itself, and second i don't really wanna go see some old dudes with money and nothing better to do, fly these little RC planes around. i had nowhere to be, so i conceded. let me say this: this little jets are legit. many are worth 10,000 dollars or more, and can go speeds of up to 200mph. they do rolls, loops, fly upside down, do smoke trails, everything a stunt jet would do. we were standing behind one (they are a little smaller than a small pool table if you could picture that. 4-10 foot wingspan.) as it went out onto the runway and you could feel the wind and heat from this remote controlled, turbine driven jet. it was awesome. i don't think i could really get into it, but i was definitely impressed. after that we went and played tennis.

i got second in the poker tournament i just mentioned. i think we only had 22 players or something for this particular tournament which was a 25$ buy in. 2 of the 3 previous tournies like this one some no-name dude i didn't know took down the money who wasn't even necassarilly good but was honestly just hitting cards. i placed third in the last one. this tournament though the final three people were Jake Wiebe, Willie Wiebe, and Me. three credible players with a lot of experience. so i mean, it was a good finish and we all got in the money. man i love poker.

I'm just ITCHING to get on P90X. some of you have heard me talking about it but it seems most people don't know what it is. let me summerize it. Its a 90 in-home bootcamp, essentially. there are 12 different workouts (ex. chest&shoulders, Plyometrics, kempo X, arms&back, Yoga X...some are resistance training while others are mostly cardio) done during the course of 12 weeks. you do one every for an hour (and 3 of those days you do an Ab Ripper after the workout on top of that). so its intense. the fitness guide that comes with it is 50 pages long, and the nutrition guide is 150 pages (including recipes). so basically they give you the roadmap to get absolutely ripped, its up to you how hard and closely you wanna follow the program to arrive there. its pretty amazing. i have everything i need software wise (worth $140), but the problem is i have to buy resistance bands, some supplements, and a couple other accessories before i get started. and i don't have money. but i wanna make sure that when i start that i can do it right. so i'll keep everyone posted. i really wanna start it ASAP and do it during the course of the summer. i'll do before and afters n stuff.

i love my parents but i'm becoming more and more eager to get out. i'm 22, so its no wonder but i simply don't have the means to take that step right now. i at LEAST need employment. they are very gracious and patient but some distance, like in any relationship, goes a long way to help things. i want to have a smooth and functioning relationship but there is still this conflict of interest at times where they have leverage partly cause i live at home, and partly cause i owe them a boatload of money from this past year. again, they're real good about it, but it is what it is. i just wanna mooooveeee forward.

i'll try n write some more.

til later.

this has been J.R.

Heeeyyy Yoouuu Guuyyysss...and then a rant at the end.

2009-04-22T13:56:00.000-07:00

We had our last day of riding at Winter Park. I actually didn’t enjoy it that much cause we had just gotten about 35 inches of fresh powder. I’m not a big powder fan. Great day none the less, but at the end two students got their boards jacked. Kind of amazing having a few hundred bucks disappear like that. I might get one more day in of riding. I have to talk to Dan today to see if i can have Friday off and go riding in Denver area with Zane. I think he’ll let me since i’m leaving this coming weekend. We’re gunna get sushi too. Mm.

Jeph, i keep forgetting to respond to you on facebook so i’m gunna tell you right now in class while i’m thinking of it. I can’t go to that Jays game. I would love a little road trip upon my arrival, and then go to see the jays but 40 bucks is too steep. I’m in a serious bit of debt. Quite the little run they are on though huh?

Well, lots of exciting news about the Lions. I won’t bore you with it all, but the draft is this weekend! We have 8 picks, so our team is going to look ridiculously different by the time our roster is set. Two are in the first round and i think like 5 are in the top 100 picks. Lots of exciting highlights already though. The Lions have a new logo/brand to represent their new beginning. They also just finished a training camp type thing where they’re really starting to work on everything. Everyone has something to prove whether player or coach since most people are new. I’d be happy with .500 this year. Even if we pick up great talent there won’t necessarily be ideal chemistry that comes with experience playing with the same people or same coaches. We’re running new schemes with a new playbook, so everyone is learning tons right now. I think we should let go of the quarterback need for this year. Use our picks on talented players rather than a decent quarterback. Somehow i feel like Culpepper having had more time in Detroit now to prepare and play in their system, and also having his old offensive co-ordinator (who he was working with when he had his best ever season in Minnesota) now in Detroit, he might be able to produce this year. Apparently he’s lost at least 20 pounds or so too, so he’s looking lean and he’s working hard to be a competitive starter. it’s his last season on contract. Just wait until next year and pick up a franchise QB or something maybe. Whatever. Then if the year is a write-off play Stanton so he can get experience. He still deserves a chance in my books. He’s young but he’s got strengths, especially learning alongside such an old veteran. Great rusher too. Chuck, i can’t wait to watch games in your ballin new basement provided i’m still home at that point. My ping pong skills have climaxed...halftime might be as intense as the actual football game. You’ve been warned.

I’m excited to come home. People here are over-reacting. I guess that goes to show they value me and don’t want me gone but i recognize it’s beyond my wanting to remain here. It’s simply time, and that’s fine. There is lots to do and be excited for back home too. I’m still jobless and rather non-directional. That hunt will start immediately i’m sure. I really hope i can find something rewarding i can get excited about and work hard at. As of now i could see myself doing my last full-time semester of school in January. That, of course being subject to course availability and job situations but i wanna wrap it up soon. Other highlights include golfing plans with Jon and maybe some others, having poker nights again, being with family and my nephew, playing beach volleyball this summer, getting into a workout routine at home, and maybe look into musical opportunities. I’m still loosely holding onto that passion. Living arrangements could yet work out into something exciting too but that’s still rather vague.

One thing that scares me is something called reality. I’ve been trying to mentally prepare for my homecoming and how that will look much different from what’s required of me here in Colorado but i’m still unsure. I don’t have an awful lot of responsibility here and the consequences are more than tolerable. I’m going to try hard to stay positive and productive but i guess we’ll see. I also know that i’m susceptible to a countless buffet of addicting distractions back home. It’s not worth worrying about too much though and i feel good about my outlook on things including the realities of home. I have goals and dreams so if i keep those in mind then i will endure the means to arrive there.

We’re studying revelations right now. I didn’t go to class last night so i don’t have an opinion about it just yet. Interesting book though huh? Some of it is really neat while other parts are straight ridiculous. Most of that book is bound by interpretation. I should read it again. I could actually see myself reading the bible still but for different reasons. I want to be informed and educated if i’m going to talk about it. I’ve read through the new testament a few times, and I’ve studied or been reasonably exposed to maybe half of the old testament books, so i’m not operating on Sunday school stories when i talk about biblical things. That doesn’t mean i couldn’t afford to be sharper on it. I’m not very good with direct passages or bits of texts. Its more about understanding patterns and the nature of God’s people as well as God, and then talking about that on a broader scale. Maybe that’s safer in a lot of ways since it’s easy to take things out of context. I’m sure there is a place for both approaches and i am sure that i am dead wrong often enough. You’re gracious people though and not everything is certain. So a little opinion here and there never hurts.

I’ve said this before but it came up again in family group yesterday. The question asked was, “what’s one thing you have learned from God this year”. One of those things for me is just how severely my actions affect the people around me. I used to influence and inspire people in different ways during my involvement in the church. All the while that i was being reminded and encouraged of this though i was often depressed and exhausted. I struggled with many of the same things i do now but i simply “struggle” far less anymore. I don’t fear my choices and how they affect me, but it hurts me when it negatively affects people i love. You will never ever please everyone and at the point where you are pleasing the most people possible you will probably be miserable. So gauging how you are doing based on how happy people are isn’t always sound. If you aren’t happy you will be less effective in all that you do. I don’t regret anything so far. In fact, i don’t really see the value at all in regret. I may yet do some dumb things but as long as it makes sense and means a lot to me at the point i commit to it then why would i regret that? Looking back i may think to myself that i would never do that again knowing what i do now, but it’s already over...it is the past and it is unchangeable. It’s so simple but not enough people live by the fact that regret or fear or worry or lingering in dark places we’ve passed doesn’t accomplish a thing. The only good that can come of marginal choices or situations is learning how to respond to those things or help others in the future. So don’t stay there! If something bothers you that happened which could have went down different just think of where you were and what you were thinking when it happened. There was a bit of reasoning i’m sure when you decided to do what you did, so don’t stay in that place. Move and react to life in a way that represents your current true self, don’t dwell on what you once did out of a desire you once had. If i have negatively affected my relationship with any of you i am sorry. I realize it’s not likely since we don’t interact, but it could very well happen when i come home. I love you people, especially my family and close friends, and i would never intentionally jeopardize what we’ve got but I’ve seen instances around here of deteriorating relationships due to my ways. I’m not overly worried though. If something goes down we’ll work it out.

This is where it gets more dicey.

We had a discussion in class the other day on evangelism. Not surprisingly i got pretty wound up. Actually i ended up apologizing at the end of it explaining that i understood and agreed in part with nearly everyone’s comments, but my nature just loves to get people excited and thoughtful on challenging topics. As you would expect i’m going to share those thoughts. I started by asking Zane, who was teaching, how he would sum up our primary purpose that we serve here on earth based on the examples we observe through Jesus Christ and his Apostles throughout the new testament. Part of it is to simply learn about and know God and then to honour Him through our lives. coupled with that though, i think evangelising shares the same importance of our purpose if we’re living for God. The servants of Christ did a lot of teaching which is clearly shown through the letters that they write to the various churches but it wasn’t always about feeding the body of Christ. We are warned about absorbing all the time, like helpless children on milk who cannot contribute much of anything. God calls us to grow and function on whole foods so that we can nurture others into a saving knowledge of Christ. Getting lost and consumed with problems we have or things we struggle with can be easy. You can distort your focus on any number of things. I guess we could give credit to how cunning and subtle Satan is. As long as we keep the light on ourselves and whatever is going on, we are very ineffective toward furthering God’s kingdom. It’s not enough to just serve within the body of Christ. You hear it in churches that we need to get out of the church and reach our communities, which is great. Some do a better job than others when acting out on that. My point being that we’re not only to study and replicate Jesus’ character, we are to fully embrace beyond all reasoning the CAUSE of Christ. He came to save the lost. He spent time with thousands of people – some good, some not so good but he always presented them with the truth. He gave them an informed choice to make. He was relational but he was also unapologetic about the message he carried, which is the same message we carry. I wonder this...can you be a Christian with eternal security, and a right standing with God, if you are not spreading the gospel? I don’t think that “not swearing at work” is enough to say that you’re reaching the lost. I don’t think that listening to someone’s problem is spreading the gospel. Sure, acting different, loving on people and being available for their basic needs is part of ministering to them but without giving them the truth, they’re still going to hell!! You’ve simply been a nice person. It gets more complicated than that if we talk about planting seeds and not being over-bearing on people, it’s true, but the positive reaction or immediate salvation as a result of our news should not dictate whether or not it’s required of His servants to share that news! It’s controversial because every single one of us knows it’s terribly uncomfortable and difficult. We’d rather save face than save someone. Being blunt at the cost of how we’re viewed weighs heavily on the average person so we come up with any number of excuses or compromises of why this idea is arguable. “Well, i just don’t think that God gifted me with evangelism so i’m not sure that’s where i’m called to serve”, or “i don’t think it’s very effective when you force the message on people or offend them by sharing your own personal faith”. Jesus was ultimately murdered because of how honest and aggressive he was with His message. His disciples and the people who followed him were constantly scorned and persecuted, even sent to jail or killed because of it. Offending people is part of the package so quit hiding behind that. If the gospel has altered your life in any way, it should be important above all else. If you are passionate about who He is or what He’s done, you have a responsibility!! This is cliché but it says it very well: if you had the cure for cancer and knew you could save and drastically change the state of someone’s life, wouldn’t you tell them? Wouldn’t you help them!? Any person with a soul would probably give an enthusiastic “of course!” So if you think God can change lives and save them from a gnarly existence forever in fire, wouldn’t you get uncomfortable for that?!?! Maybe the conviction just isn’t severe enough. Maybe you’re not sure He’s got that cure, otherwise why wouldn’t you? I wonder, if we asked every individual in your church, or every student in my bible school class, or every kid in a youth group how many people they’ve lead to salvation...how do you think that would look? I bet it would be embarrassingly depressing. I know that the average Christian couldn’t even count one conversion. Yea, sure it’s not all about numbers but at some point it’s got to play a role in this. Instead of talking about how many people your church has, or how many people you’ve saved, what if we talked about the number of people going to hell that could have at least been presented with an informed choice, if only you had stepped up? This stuff is too important not to think of numbers in some sort of light. It was interesting to see the reactions in class as we worked through this topic. Some people were sort of silent and humbled while others got very defensive, maybe threatened by the challenge. Again, i’m going to say what i did in class once it sort of simmered down. I think that your life is the best tool you have to reach the lost. You are being watched, so your example is a significant voice in how people see Christians and you as an individual. Actions speak louder than words right? So i’m not trying to deny any of this, i’m just challenging the idea and saying that it’s not enough to avoid the responsibility and commission that we’ve been given. The way is narrow. The people who are holy and called God’s children i know are fewer than those who simply believe He exists. There HAS to be a real cost involved. Think about it. Otherwise you’re fooling yourself.

Love you.
See You So Soon.

Jimanez (Him-a-nezz).

this one's kinda long

2009-04-14T20:15:00.001-07:00

Near the beginning of the year we played volleyball once a week. Going into it we thought it was going to be a legitamite league with competitive nature which was ultimately exciting. Turns out it was barely pick-up where we ended up playing against one another. Gym volleyball is alright; lets you jump more effectively. It’s no beach volleryball though where you can play in shorts with sunglasses and jump around diving every single rally. If i do end up around home this summer (which is what everything seems to be pointing too) i’m gunna play in the windsor league again. We don’t play volleyball here anymore but we do play basketball once a week now. At first it was painful. I don’t know anything about basketball. Of all the mainstream sports that is easily one of my least played so i don’t know where to run or where to be. Its been 3 or 4 weeks now and i’ve shown drastic improvements. I can shoot better, but i still stay away from it when i can. I’ve learned to use size to my advantage so i play under the net the majority of the time. I’m told i’m very good at grabbin boards (rebounds). I think skateboarding helped me develope pretty good hops. I like being active, and i like expanding my skills and abilities into different things like this. Last night i got elbowed in the face by our 250 pound G.I. Joe cook. Split my lip open and made me dizzy for a good 10 seconds, but there is a lot of adrenaline involved. I didn’t know until a couple weeks ago either that basketball was so exhausting. I’ve got blisters inside of my blisters.

i dunno, i’m sure you’ve heard me rant on this before because its one of those hot topic buttons of mine. I don’t think i have on my blog however, and that topic is vegetarians. As far as i’m aware, i don’t have any vegetarian readers. Even if i did it wouldn’t change what i’m about to say i guess. Alright first we’ve the issue of WHY? Why would you ever be a vegetarian? For those who think that its cruel to kill animals and eat them, i hardly even want to respond to that. Its biblically based that that is the purpose and function of animals. Its absolute non sense to think its cruel in anyway, i’m not even going to elaborate. If those people think they are actually making a difference in the overall productin of meat related products i think thats embarresingly naive. Some people are raised that way because their parents were vegetarians. That makes sense to me. They probably weren’t exposed to meat and therefore never aquired a taste for it, and may have also inheritted their parents ideals about vegetarians. You know what i would relate this too, i’ve talked about it on here before. Thats the same as kids growing up in christian homes. It makes sense for them to aquire the position that they have. So my opinion on that instance? Understandable, but tragic. Another reason might be vegetarians think they are substantially healthier. Its true, eating what vegetarians do is often very healthy but protein and meat products are also very good for you in moderation! So having meat in your diet, but still having good dieting disciplines makes you that much more healthy. Meat is not unhealthy, so therefore vegetarians are not by default MORE healthy. They just eat more greens than the average person, which i agree is good. The problem with vegetarians for me is that they are very strong willed. They have heavily bound opinions and get defensive in most cases if confronted about it. Second, they expect the world to alter and function because of their exceptions. Why?! You’re the exception, so i don’t think you should be cattered too and expect to have a seperate meal made for you. They tend to be very picky too. Its not just a matter of having the absence of meat, its about having something suitable and pleasing for them, at least in much of my experience.

i’ve noticed a trend around here. People are becoming less content. The year is noteably changing and slowing down. We don’t have groups coming in anymore, we have less classes, the mountain is on its last leg but its still snowing, wet, or muddy enough so that you can’t do too much outdoors, so things are simply slowing down. Perhaps its people becoming bored and indifferent with this place and these people too. I’m guilty of that in part, but i’m still very happy. I think its normal at this stage. People i wouldn’t expect though just seem miserable around here and it sucks. The only thing i’m unhappy about is my training. I haven’t been running much due to the mud, and i haven’t been working out because i don’t like it, and because my shoulder is still sore. Everything else though is incredible. I spend too much time on my computer too. Its too easy and satisfying. Snowboarding is done, hockey is done, working out is on hiatus due to health, you can only play so many board games, and i don’t have a car. So its reasonably easy to justify. Its amazing how easy it is to slip into dependancy and complacency with those sorts of habits though, at least for me. I think i have an addictive nature but computer has always been an issue for me.

Randall had to share his testimony today in family group and it reminded me of something. Him and i have talked about it before of course but it simply reminded me. He has A.D.D. and did very poorly in school because of its effects. He had to take medicine (aderal) to control it. Whats interesting about this is i could relate far too well. Ever since i can remember i’ve been antsy, distracted, distinterested (even though i understand the weight and priority that school should provoke), and unable to excel in school. I want to suceed but i can’t retain my concentration in that setting of any sort. My mind races on anything but what is actually going on in class. I think of 100 other things i’d rather be doing, and i can justify my inaction without thinking twice. I simply wonder.......what if medical aid changed that. Randall described what it was like. He said that on the days he took his meds, his friends were always upset cause he was totally non-sociable. He didn’t eat properly. He wouldn’t make eye contact or interact normally, but he could stay on tasks easier than any other course of action. He even enjoyed it. He could do anything and focus if he were on these pills. So what if there were a more mild version of this type of stuff? I’d at least like to try it. I wouldn’t want at all to be dependant on it, but for times when my attention is critical on finishing a task or assignment it would be so nice if it helped. It has bothered me for a very long time, and i’ve thought far more than once that perhaps i actually have a treatable problem. I have the intellectual capacity i just can’t focus it. Maybe i’ll look into it when i come home.

thats it for updates. This is perhaps a poor intellectual tangent i’m about to embark on. One in which i’m sure i have repeated myself.

there is nothing that upsets me more than intolerant christianity. I don’t believe for a second that there is a clear cut answer or formula that devides those who do it right and those who waiver. Clearly some people contradict the bible and therefore lose credit in their stance, and then there are others who do not even attempt at all. But for those who wear the same name above their heads, its amazing how devisive it looks. I’ve got a thought that is a bit relevant. I’m not sure how well i’ll represent that thought but here is trying. I’m going to type a couple of verses from Isiah and then ask a few questions.

Isiah 58:10-11
if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.

i don’t think this verse is an exception when it implies that we will be taken care of and we will be satisfied if we follow God’s ways, its simply an example. I’d even call that a major undercurrent throughout the bible. Well whats happening in this verse before the part that i quoted is that God’s people were doing all sorts of great works delighting in his presence, seeking his righteousness, finding awareness for the afflicted, and fasting but God calls em out. He says that even in these things they’re motive is ill. Somehow they’re still gettin it wrong even with the good intent and decent attempt at whats right. God corrects them directing them toward serving people who are poor, oppressed, and afflicted. Then if you are getting these things right then God’s promise is to have your back and ceaselessly fill your soul with what it needs. It’s nonsense. I’d argue the best thing we ever have going for us is intent. Sometimes people intend and don’t even try, but when you intend for the best and do what you can to follow through then how can that not be enough? God sent Christ because he knew we wouldn’t follow through, but what if we simply tried in whatever and all we knew of him? HOW is that not enough? These people in the beginning of the chapter were probably doing whatever they knew to be good and pleasing to God but simply fell short of his perfection...no kidding. So now then the promise of soul related abundance. We all know that christ followers do not always feel what they believe. That would be a terribly fickle faith if we operated on emotion alone, but what if you genuinely did not feel God’s presence or leading in your life but you were doing everything that you knew how. You were taking action against your weaknesses, you were investing time into God, and you were trying not to operate under your own strength pleaing for God to fuel your restoration. What if you didn’t feel like a well-watered garden even then? Is that God lying, or is that you just not getting it right? First, i don’t know how God could shoot that down but second, wouldn’t the alternative point toward works? If you weren’t getting it right and didn’t feel that promise fulfilled you would try to become devout to the things God instructed you to do so that you might make the cut. This makes it more like a checklist of deeds to gain his favour. Its kind of a rabbit hole in my mind. To step away from this thought directly but to take a bit more of a broad look at it, where the hell is the line between works and faith? Action and inaction? Our own strength or our own weakness? Intellect or emotion? Where are we safe from his judgement? It seems like if you take things into your own hands, take action, and do whatever is in your capacity people call you out on not including or depending on God. If you stand by praying though and expecting God to let everything fall into place then one of two things happen, either you’re considered lazy and abusive of what God actually promised us, or you run into conflict and division on who has more faith? God is capable of anything, so taking a chance on God showing up by not jumping all over whatever is in our power or grasp on the situation shows faith. Sometimes we wonder why we don’t see miracles like we read in the bible, or like we hear about in third world countries. The concensus is that we simply don’t take the same chances on God that they do. We don’t give him enough room to work out those miracles; we don’t set ourselves up for the miraculous in the same ways, so wouldn’t that mean being more inactive and more faith-filled? Letting God do his thang? I know there is a balance but none of us probably know or understand exactly where it is, and yet we constantly call people out or talk about them and the way their approach is skewed. Man, i can’t stress enough how DIFFERENT people are and how okay that is. I don’t know the answer but i know i’m happy. I know a lot of churched people who “know the answer” but are rather undesirable to be around. I forget, i think a wrote a blog about the day after Spencer Rogers and I gave our testimonies. They were not religeously positive messages but they were insightful, at least mine was. I know because of the questions and comments people had for me days after the fact. This whole thought all leads back and relates to what happened that morning though as people responded and assumed things about who we were or what we were doing when we were working out our salvation. You don’t know. Even if you know a person very well you still do not know the depths of their heart and the things it cries for on restless nights. I was very worked up as a result of those discussions, needless to say. I loved most of it because i’m not afraid to engage anyone in it, but it sure can get me excited beyond my more sensitive moods.

sorry that all felt terribly scattered and non-directional. Its hard to stop when you get me going on that type of thing though.

I rest that thought, and i hope the best on every one of you. Be the best version of yourself that you know how.

J.R. Whitfield

homecoming

2009-04-10T10:11:00.000-07:00

i went snowboarding for the first time in about five weeks. it was 50 degrees so there was abundant amounts of slush. i don't really care anymore about snowboarding. the year is winding down, and the mountain is only open for about another week or so. i'm not bent on lockin down some new hard trick this late in the season, i only ever get hurt. some people finally coaxed me into going today even though i wasn't that interested. they promised we could go and get treats after at seven eleven, so that clinched it for me. surprisingly after that long of a period i stepped right back into my comfort zone. the problem with me is that i can't just take it easy. its very difficult to stay within my means because i see other people pushin it, and i wanna make my mark too so i end up throwin up unrealistic airs. i tried a rodeo today in the park and sort of jacked up my shoulder. nothing too serious but its really difficult to lift. actually, after last nights sleep its much more sore. might be a minor sprain or something. after that i decided to lay off inverts for the day (i had planted a front flip earlier, which are easier for me). i threw one or two 540 attempts, i knew i could do it but it wasn't workin out clean. so near the end i threw one up but was sittin backseat a little too heavy and i under-rotated 90 degrees. i do them backside so that means the last rotation is blind. i landed on the knuckle straight on my heel edge, pitched it back onto the landing and smacked my head real good. i didn't lose conciousness or forget where i was, so it couldn't have been that bad. just a sizeable headache. shook me up. didn't surprise me. i'm fine. but its just a nuissance.

my lil buddy hunter is doing great from what i hear. he's still just a munchkin that can't do much i don't think. he'll be 3 or 4 months by the time i finally see him. probably works out best that way since i don't like fresh babies. give em a few months to develope physical characteristics and i'll warm up to em. i'm still pretty sure i'll be attracted to this little dude more than the average baby i encounter though. me n him are gunna go goooolf someday, i'll teach em to skateboard, we'll play video games, go fishing, play all kinds of sports i'm sure...whatever else, i don't even know. that'll be cool by the time he can do that stuff though. since i won't have kids i'm sure i'll still be active and fit enough to keep up with the kid. i've got a fairly avid ambition to be a good uncle, and i think that staying single will allow me to relate and stay relevant easier. i'll probably get into as much trouble with mom and dad cornies than Hunter will when i hang out with em. hah.

sometimes i wish that i could play music in a more mainstream and functional manner. i would need another person though. i'm confident in my ability to learn music, and i'm confident enough now perhaps in my voice but not by myself. i don't like the music i write for starters, and i get bored with my guitar ability too. if i had another person though to help write, and then carry the music with me in a creative way so that even simplicity would become more appealing and impressive, and then of course throwin in some harmonies or lead some of the songs too? that could be a lot of fun. not much money in it, but you can't buy an experience like that.

i'm goin to a baseball game this weekend. one of the staff here (murdoch) is the most intense sports fanatic i've probably ever met. he's a phillies fan. they won the world series last season. it was crazy around here while the playoffs were going down. the 2009 season just started and the phillies are about to enter a series against the colorado rockies. murdoch got like 12 tickets, so a bunch of us are goin down there and sittin in "the rock pile" at mile high stadium. tix were like 4 bucks. i feel guilty but i've actually been moderately excited about baseball. i discovered that i actually know about 70 percent of the tigers players. top four teams would go as follows...tigers, rockies, jays then phillies. betting on games for free through centsports goes a long way. its not much, but being invested in the outcome helps. and i like how it keeps me on top of whatever league is going on. i knew who was good and who wasn't in every mainstream professional sport this past year. its a good social tool to be aware of whats going on in sports. no matter what sport someone is partial too, you will be at least reasonably informed about it to carry a conversation, or stear educated questions toward them so they can take over and lead through the response. breaks down barriers quick.

you are probably all aware of my legal complications being here in america. i have to be out of the country by april 30th. my options are to either get all my documentation assembled on short notice, drive to denver, and then talk to an official pleaing for them to have mercy and give me an extension. they aren't very tolerant or sympathetic people so to go to all that work and still likely have thrown in my face? its not really my first choice. option two is to fly home before the end of april, and then drive out for the last couple weeks, pack up and then head home. we're not sure though if they will let me back in when i try to drive back, since i had been in america for so long and that it had only been a few days or whatever. so i'm risking spending more money to get home, and then having to ship all my stuff back and costing me even more. the last option is to just go home early, period and thats what we're leaning toward. i'm hopin that my mom and sister will road trip 'er out here, i'd love to spend some time with them. i know it'll all work out, even coming home early. i'll find a job or some opportunity will arise because of how this is playing out. i can't get stressed and start to panic because i'm not in control at the moment.

i'll keep ya posted.

J.R. Whitfield

dream on dreamer

2009-04-08T12:08:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry about that last post. hopefully only few of you read. if you don't know what i'm talking about its because i deleted it. all is well on that subject. its been as resolved as it will ever be and i have peace about it. so fear not for me or for those others who are involved.

i'm doing great.

i'm trying to transition to a lighter topic, but first i want to encourage you. think of what you're thankful for. your wife? your health? your intellegence that allows you to earn money and function well? your passions? really think about it today or whenever you read this. maybe you have exams going on, or some stupid deadlines or crap to clean up at work...before you focus in and become single minded on the various trials in your life, take a step back and think of what you have. I'm thankful for my parents and my family. i'm thankful for this past year. i'm thankful for my strengths and weaknesses, and the way that i was made. i'm thankful for dreams and opportunities, and the freedom to go after what you want. i don't think any of us are fighting wars, we're not faced with a terminal desease, we're not starving or handicapped, we are blessed. take a moment today and remember that.

I got thinking about some of my dreams. they're a bit silly and i doubt you relate to them all, but i love thinking about it.

I seriously miss golf. maybe even more than that i miss what golf represents. getting away on a Sunday afternoon with a few good friends, sippin on an extremely over-priced Ale, and maybe pullin on a very cheap cigar. hah. so high school. i remember i used to sometimes bring speakers out with me and put it in the cart so that we could listen to some peaceful instrumental music as we went, just to add to the significance. I loved golfing with friends, but i loved golfing by myself too when i used to work at the golf course. i would go out in the evenings during the week when it was pretty slow or i would go off the back nine if it was slower back there. i would throw on some worship or peaceful music, and just go after it by myself. it was such a positive escape. i would finish nine holes in a clean 60 minutes, no problem. on some occasions i wouldn't even take off my bag from my back. i would just walk up on the green, withdraw my appropriate weapon and finish up. i'd never keep a scorecard but just keep track with +/- scores in my head. i loved it.

my dream someday is to play in a league with many friends while drinking better beers and smoother ciagrs. I'd have a great set of clubs, whatever set I'd like. I would walk sometimes cause i like the excercise, but i feel like it affects my game, so I'd play often with carts. i'm not talkin just any course. i wanna someday be a member of a private course where the carts have GPS systems in them with a course layout and indicates exact distances to the hole and other relevant information. I'd get free range access, free club cleaning, an amazing clubhouse, incredible service...i'd love to be a part of that community. Golf is just such a gentleman's sport. you dress well, you tuck in your shirts, you treat the game and the people with proper etiquite. most of us who have played golf think immediately, "yea but those people are all pricks from what i've observed". I think they mostly just think that of kids. we're not kids anymore, and I'm a respectable golf player, not a hack. you're in paradise on the course, so why be upset about anything?! i'd do what i could too associate myself with positive groups.

actually i kind of miss sports in general. i wish i had hit puberty earlier so i would have been more involved in sports when i grew up. i'm thankful i played baseball, and i know my parents tried to put me in hockey and stuff but i hated it. i wouldn't have made it anyways so i guess its no biggie. but i wanna join some pick up hockey when i get home, and playing beach volleyball in a league would be primp too.

I'd also love to join a top of the line gym. the kind of gym with a spa in it...and massages! I think it'd be really cool to be in some yoga classes to increase flexibility/range of motion and strengthen your core. it might also be sweet to do like, some boxing related stuff. you stay in really good shape doing that, plus, its pretty masculine. it would be a super clean gym, have the best equipment, have a sweet protein shake bar on site to sit and have one afterward. it would have a pool too. apperently swimming is one of the best thing you can do for yourself in terms of cardio because its utterly exhausting and there isn't the impact on your knees and back like running. it's a great social network too. you meet tons of cool people, and they would be disciplined people who are concious of their fitness too.

this one won't connect with many of you, but it sort of runs in my veins. i want to play high stakes poker, and have it be within my means based on my bankroll. as well it would be a dream come true to someday play in the World Series of Poker. some of you like poker, some of you could care less, but for whatever reason i LOVE poker. its a dangerous passion. i haven't really gotten into trouble with it yet. the other problem is that i know i can win. i wish i would have kept track of all my winnings and losses on the computer or something, but i know i probably netted a couple grande over the entire course of my poker experience. anyways. someday maybe you'll see me on ESPN at the final table.

I want to be a season ticket owner of a professional sports team. i don't really care about most sports except for football. the rest i'm kind of indifferent, like, i would go to and watch any of them but i don't know if i could regularilly go to and follow games. problem is, Canada doesn't have any professional football teams so I'd have to live in Windsor to make it work. but how sweet would that be? get season tickets for a box seat in ford field? it's a gorgeous facility. you'd get served food, it has a bar right in it, comfy spacious seating, internet and t.v.'s in the box to keep up on stats or replays and stuff on demand. that would be BALLIN. why do i get the feeling that life requires a more realistic take on things than what i've been mentioning? i don't know why i think that because i know its totally possible to acheive and attain whatever it is you're passionate about. I'm not certain how to get there. i just took a year off. i have a skill set in business i guess but i don't have a foundation for a career, i'm sort of just floundering. i'm assuming the answer is simply action and amazingly hard work. dad, any of those things i just mentioned would be an awesome common ground for you and i! i know you like golf. you've always appreciated it, you just need some practice or lessons. i know you appreciate your health, you're generally quite active. i know you love sports...maybe i could teach you how to indulge a bit more somewhere down the road. hehe.

J.R.

don't slow down

2009-03-31T19:38:00.001-07:00

we were supposed to have a group come in this weekend. it was going to be our last scheduled group of the year but a huge storm rolled in and they had to cancel. we had like 3 weeks of spring around here so most people were gettin pretty excited but then all of a sudden we get this blizzard rolling through threatening up to 2 feet of snow. i'll take advantage of the extra time and snow this weekend and get to the mountain.

just found out yesterday that two guys (chris ryan and spencer rogers, one of my roomates) are probably getting sent home. its pretty crazy since its so close to the end of the year, and the last time the obstruction was committed was over a month ago. Dan just found out from someone recently i guess. its because they smoked weed here. there are even others who have done the same, but i guess these two have just done it the most and got caught. its pretty rugged. spencer is shook up. we're gunna have a room meeting today to talk it out.

in other offical news my ipod is toast. its been showing signs of dying for a while now. i mean, it is 2 years old so i'm not upset. i think they're only supposed to live for a good year or so? at least the old models. the problem isn't so much me being short an ipod. the problem is that i need all my music off of it! i've drawn audio from several different computers, so it would be difficult to restore my library. not to mention i don't have any money for an ipod right now.

i've already told you about my strange obsession with not having any kids. i just watch them and think, "man, my life would be OVER the second that i have to take care of a couple punesters" (derived from the word puny(sp?) to describe something or someone small. yea i made it up and use it toward children now). Matt MacDonald (the 6' 7" basketball player) immediately fell in love with the term and uses it regularilly. i was going to make a point about this. i decided that the motive behind having kids is so that people sort of live on through there kids. maybe this is deranged and of course its just an opinion on one of the main influencers for having kids. we are finite beings and i'm sure that only becomes more and more urgent as you get older. it just makes sense that a part of you carries on and receives what used to be yours and learns from you and is sort of an image you when you've got a kid. when i think about it, that would be one decent reason to have them. otherwise i might end up bein 30 or 40 or 50 without a kid thinking, this is it. once i'm done in a couple decades there won't be a trace of me left. nothing 'of' me lives on.

i also conjured up an argument for my bachelor-hood. i talk about it enough but this is a new thought. i'm pretty strong on not being committed to someone and of course i understand why to some extent but this was a new bit of reasoning that came to me. I have always up til now (and still do) made regular parallels between God and marriage. we hear about it at marriages, we read about it in the bible. its nearly irrefutable. thats the beauty, we see and understand how we relate and function with God through many earthly relationships. that been said i'm screwed. if faith and love are so similar and i've already crapped out on faith then what does that say about love? i don't even need to make a reasonable assumption about what might happen, I've already proved myself to be lacking in eithe area. So faith got hard, i assessed my options, and chose to serve me. what would i do in a marriage? what would i do when the feeling left and i didn't feel love like i used too. what if nothing was working and i was getting a lot of attention from women still. would i act on my options? i'm not a very good person but at least i know it. i don't trust myself. now, i'm relatively young and seeing how much i've changed one way in such a short time, i know i'm not too far gone to restore some integrity some day, but right now thats a huge reason why i can't get committed - i don't trust myself for a second.

i think i decided to fly home at the end of April since i have to be out of the country, but then drive a car back down a few days later so that i don't miss the end of the year at school, and then i would just pack up and drive back home. right now thats what it looks like. and summer plans? no news. i remember being so excited in february and march because i thought i had sure-fire options but they've been leaking on me ever so steady. thats fine. i'll make the most of where i am. something will work out.

the last thing i have too say? i've been listening to waaayyy too much techno. my music capacity has dwindled pretty severely i think.

J.R.

2009-03-25T06:54:00.001-07:00

i just arrived back from mexico yesterday. it was an interesting trip. you've kind of heard my rant about missions and how they don't really line up for me so i probably appreciated this trip the least out of everyone who went. i mean, i tried to be positive (and there are positive things to be said about it) but it wasn't easy. we went to Dzan Mexico in the Yukitan peninsula to help build an orphanage. we didn't so much build though as we did just pull 5 foot tall weeds and plants in the field on the front of the property. we did that everyday. on the last day we poured some concrete and worked on a garden but that is basically it. in the evenings we would usually just go get Coke's in bottles for about 40 american cents, and sit in the downtown square watching people. a couple nights we played soccer in town with some of the kids. we went to a prison one of the days and did a service for about 50 of the inmates. i guess it was pretty special, i'm just jaded too it. so we finally go to cancun for our long awaited two days to finish the trip and wind down. we stay at this remote little hotel that smells like sewage and had 3 cockroaches in our room. the pool was green and the walls/doors were paper thin. our one full day in cancun though we went across to an island which was a great day. we rented brand new scooters and zipped around those for most of the day. we also did some tanning, swimming, shopping, beach volleyball...everyone was free to do what they pleased all day. so i guess that was the highlight. on the way home when i got the airport in houston for our connecting flight we had to go through customs. i got pulled into the office for further questioning. after asking an extensive set of questions about the school and my involvment the guy finally replied "ok well, whatever you showed them in detroit when you came over you're not showing us now. you must have had other paperwork or proof at that time (which we did, my mom has it at home). we don't have to honour this stamp allowing you extended time in the US. i could have you on a direct flight to canada for this." he eventually let me go, but made it clear that the time i was aloud ended april 30th...i have to be out of the country by then. i only miss 2 weeks of school, but that two weeks include a trip to moab utah for a week, and graduation. so it was quite a downer on things.

that's a summarized look at mexico. the last few days have been particularilly hard to face myself, which is unusual. i generally love myself and just about everything going on in my life, but i've been seeing my deeply flawed nature. i'm so negative about just certain things. i function on the surface of emotion and thought. i'm more selfish than i've ever been. basically, whatever nature of my flesh i used to fight against in christ's name i have seen take shape now that it is unchecked. its not enough to change yet, but its not too little to ignore. i've had a couple of gripping decisions i've made in the last few weeks two that are almost haunting me. its been a strange and heavy few days, but i plan on bouncing back asap. summer plans being so waivered and uncertain don't help either. there are reasons why home is appealing but there are reasons why home is a last ditch option too. any other door besides that one may require risk and my ability to step out on chance. i'd like to do that. i admire the people who can.

i've decided it would be a dream of mine to go on tour with a band. i picture an already established and recognized band, probably hardcore. i just think it would be an unmatched experience. something else though as i was talking to owen today came up. he's been recording a bit so he sent me a song he had just finished (it was a cover). it was beautiful. he just used garage band, but the vocals were nearly dead on. i was just trying to imagine doin music with that guy which could also be so much fun. we're alike in a lot of ways (and unlike in others..).

another thing that has come to my attention is that, i have a problem with authority. i don't know when the transition happened or what sparked it exactly. i always sort of thought that i wasn't at all the type of person to be rebelious or have this problem, but i do. i don't like doing things just for the sake of doing them. i like reason and i like understanding why so that i'm fully behind it. if i see the picture and agree with it i think i'm very capable of moving on it.

until later.

JR

2009-02-17T20:38:00.000-08:00

i'm terrible, i know. i've felt disconnected and i'm sure you have too. part of it of course is just me being lazy. but there is some reasoning behind it. i JUST got my laptop back yesterday, the internet has been unstable at best recently, and lastly we haven't been on a normal class schedule. it's been busy around here so i haven't made time to write. the longer i wait the more unappealing it is to me too because of the catch up factor.

so i'm not gunna try to catch up. there has been a lot that has happened but it would be too exhaustive. at least right now. yesterday i did land on my face trying a front 540 so i have a real good black eye. i can do backflip 180's, frontflips, backside 5's...those are the updates.

mexico is coming up real soon. about 3 weeks or so i think. also, Jen comes to visit even sooner! she comes on march 5th to 10th. i'm very excited.

i gave my faith story this morning. many people have heard about where i stand and how i think, particularilly in the spiritual sense but this was an exhuastive look at my life and current state. so it was an interesting morning. i mean, people deal with it well and are quite tolerant of me but there was quite a buzz around the school all day because of the challenges that i brought up. i individually talked (got approached) by most of the staff and ended up talking to many students too about it. mostly all positive. in case you aren't sure my views and convictions haven't changed really at all.

i'm never ever having kids. i half hope i don't get married but i'm not as confident on that one. but kids? forget that. genelle will have to pull her weight AND mine in terms of grandchildren i guess. i'll make it up to you by babysitting a whole bunch or something. I am an uncle now for anyone who doesn't know. His name is Hunter and i'm pretty excited to meet him. we're gunna do awesome stuff together i'm sure.

i talked to heather today. it made me realize i miss you guys. life is so good and things are exciting but i'm looking forward to seeing everyone again. summer plans are still in the air. i'm sort of frustrated by the poor communication on the other end. i'm gunna pursue another lead i had with a tree planter, but if that all falls apart i'm either going to pursue the spain idea, or i suppose figure something out back home. i'm not too too fond of the idea of being home all summer. i would have fun and enjoy lots of aspects of that, but i know it would be hard too. we'll see how that all plays out yet.

NFL scouting combines happen tomorrow in indianapolis. i'm excited to read up on it. oh, and i told you about the lions jersey and how i got the wrong player right? its all good. for one, no one knows the detroit lions well enough to care, and Jones is such a vague and generic last name that it doesn't draw much attention either. so its all good. plus, i use it for practical purposes like snowboarding and hockey on a regular basis...love it. hopefully if i make bank this summer i'll buy a legit better one in september come the regular season. does anyone know how much decent season tickets cost? i'd love to know.

i've gotten a bit sloppy with the workout regimend. mostly my eating habits have turned into what i want when i want, and again, running is really hard to initiate in this weather. we've got those 3 weeks before mexico so the goal is to work double hard until then (and Jen coming helps motivate too). I've been doing something called Hip Hop Abs with Shawn T at dan and sara's place. its so rediculous. the dude is gay, i'm sure, and the moves are pretty embarressing at times but it also makes it fun. it works real real well too though. hah.

still playing lots of hockey.

ouch

2009-01-30T18:31:00.000-08:00

yesterdy was an early morning by choice. our room got up at 6:45, did an early workout session and whatever else. but then it occured to us somehow. we wanted to be GANGsters all day. we did just that. now, when i say gangsters its a lot more along the lines of white trash. most of us wearing beaters with ballin sunglasses, maybe headphones, definitly some bandana's goin on, sweatbands, pants that didnt' even touch our butts...you get the idea. we even found a couple of airsoft guns we stuck in our pants. aaaannndddd of course my watch with the tin foil grill to match. it was fun. once everyone outside our room realized that we deemed it gangster day, many followed suite.

i'm waayyy into 24. can't believe it happened but i did it. its real good.

most of you know perhaps, but another thing that happened yesterday was that my laptop broke. it got bumped off my desk by a student and won't start up. i'm having it looked at. major inconvenience though.

i was just starting to feel healthy again today. i was workin out, wasn't burdened by any serious injury, we got the rink back in shape so i was looking forward to hockey. that is up until this afternoon. I went snowboarding. We just went for a couple hours and it was going well at first. we were mostly riding parks. it was about 3:15 (mountain closes at 4) when we were in this one park were i threw a back 3 on the last booter. i slid out but had enough space to cut over to hit a rail at the bottom of the park. bad idea. i tried to tail press it but slipped off. the rail was high enough where my board didn't make contact with the ground during the fall, it was all me. i feel onto my hip/side. at first when i was sitting there i was sort of in shock, but i also realized i needed to get up. so i rode the rest of the way (not far) crouched down to the lift where 4 or 5 others were waiting. i told them that i had just bailed pretty hard and that i felt quite naseuas. i thought perhaps i was just shaken up and needed to sit. i was going to meet them at starbucks at 4 once it closed. i hobbled over to a bench by the lift after insisting they leave, but then things got wierder. my vision begun to fog over and everything became very very bright. i couldn't see anything but blobs representing people. i couldn't focus my sight, and i couldn't focus my hearing either. everything seemed muffled and distant. i was in pain and still felt sick. i probably sat there for a good 10 minutes or so trying to catch my breath and get cleared up but to no avail. obviously by now i realized i was in trouble and couldn't get down th mountain on my own, so i got the attention of a lifty. he called in some first aid peeps. first thing they did after a couple questions was hit me with oxygen which helped clear up my senses and sickness. i think i just about passed out but fortunately stayed concious. then they strapped me down and sledded me back to the clinic. after checkin me out they were sort of insisting i should have it further examination done by the doctor but i told them that unless my insurance somehow cleared i couldn't do it. it would have costed me hundreds. i laid for another 30 mins or so before they helped me to my feet. the pain was just amazing. they gave me four iboprofen. she wasn't supposed to but she gave em to me anyways cause she was convinced i needed them. there were ride complications too cause we were supposed to meet long ago. finally tracked each other down. got back home. decided not to go to the hospital tonite.

i think i'm fine. its just a piss-off. i'm crippled again for however long. worst case i might have damaged some ligements or chipped the top part of my hip. my pee isn't bloody which is good. if its unbearable in the next day or two i will go. more than anything i'm just curious as to what happened, you know? cause everyone asks, and i got nothin. "i hurt my hip. it was crazy". i'm on a bunch of pain killers. i'm kind of loopy and can't stop giggling (which just hurts it more) so i dunno how i'm doing. we'll see tomorrow.

jim jim

you know how i do...or at least now you have a better idea.

2009-01-27T20:07:00.000-08:00

some of you may have heard but i bought a Detroit Lions jersey, finally. It's an XL black (alternate) jersey featuring Kevin Smith, this past year's rookie running back. It's exciting and quite overdue. We now have a new head coach who has recently hired an assistant head coach/defensive coordinator. New off. coordinator too. I may not even be around for the draft if i'm out west, and that kills me. i'll find a way to stay on top.

I had been neglecting Randall this semester a bit because of my roommates so after doing laundry late last night him and i went to the prayer cabin to talk. we talked until about 1:30 in the mornin. way overdue. probably end up doing more of that this semester.

snowboarding is getting pretty exciting. there is so much snow here. the other day i tried the following tricks for the first times: frontflip, backflip, misty, and a fs rodeo. after many tries the only one i landed was the frontflip. pretty neat. but i slammed so many times so hard in the process of these all. i rode for 4 and a half hours around the lodge tryin stuff. so that whole time included hiking between runs, and major bails cause of the new tricks. i don't have very good invert air awareness yet. you just huck it and try to make sense of where you are...until you land on your head or something and realize you need more flip and less spin or whatever the case may be. i think i'm like the only person here who doesn't really like riding powder or the peak of the mountain (panoramic). first of all, its almost always a windy white out up there with blistering cold temps. second, i don't know how to ride powder that well yet or maybe i do but i just do it sloppy. you have lean back real far to keep you nose from gettin buried while you ride. this is why i hate it. you have to work SO so hard the whole time. first of all you have all the pressure on your back leg so it gets exhausted, then the snow is all chopped and mounded in areas and you can't see it cause its overcast and snowing much of the time (at least at the top of the mountain. it gets better as you head down). so you're legs are almost cramping but you can't let down your guard because if you do you're 100% edge-catch bound. especially when you're already tired and sore before you even ride. anyways. i'm pretty conscious about my whining so i just try to stay quiet. my ideal day is either in the park, or on more average sized groomed runs (which still almost always have a ton of powder on em) because i like making my own fun. instead of riding stupid hard you have the option of bouncing in and out of trees, hittin jumps, tryin butters/slides, ridin switch, or just mellow riding to rest your legs. i just like the options of doin what i feel like. double blacks that are all powder with messy conditions don't really allow for it. but everyone loves it. and HARDcore tree runs. its just not me. and that's ok. sometimes when we're doin a session as a group i still care what people think. not to the extent that its juvenile, but it helps to push me. when it comes to back country though, i could care less if people think or say that i suck. i honestly don't care on how i'm graded her anymore on that.

push up challenge is now up to 100 per day. it doesn't seem like much, i know, but our muscles are all ripped up. we're tired. so its quite a toll each day.

we had a sleep over last night in our room. we have dance parties almost every night. we finally ordered our glow in the dark stars yesterday too for our room. so they should be here in a few days. i think we got like a thousand! i'll take a picture or something ok? i think the footy pajamas are a no go. they're like 40 bucks min. that's just too much for jams.

Jen is officially coming out to visit me! she booked her flights yesterday and is gunna come check out what i've been up too. it'll be nice to get a visitor. if anyone wants to come hang out just let me know, we could arrange something.

Jon that was a fantastic story about your latest project. haha. by the time you brought everything way out front i just imagine noise at -100 db...no actually i imagine you just mastered it like anything else based on what your standard is for good, cause apparently the dude just wanted to be able to hear everything. glad home church is working out so well.

my business blood is catching up to me. i've become an entrepreneur here at school. actually, its eric and i. i mean, its kind of a joke because its so small scale, but its also pretty fun. what we're doing is we're selling hot dogs and hamburgers at the school down in our dorm. eric has a george forman grill. so we went grocery shopping, got all we needed and then i created a spreadsheet that included our cost, markup, profit, quantity sold, amount invested by us, a current inventory of our goods and a couple other things. its rather functional. i guess cost accounting and excel courses came in handy for something. we call it EJ (edge) Burgers, based off our names. sounds intriguing though. and i mean, they're good! real juicy. we have cheese, sauteed onions, condiments, spices, bbq sauce - and i accounted the price into everything. so when we start cookin some up it just fills the entire basement, and everyone gets hungry. we've made like 12 bucks so far in profit. it's only been a few days though. it's really quite menial, but we enjoy it. we're gunna target the groups of kids that come in on weekends too. you remember when you were in high school on youth trips and mom slipped you a couple twenties...those kids get hungry at night and have some greens. you'd be surprised at how hungry homeboys get at 11pm after a workout session. we picked a good market with an appropriate product. haha.

summer plans still in limbo. waiting for a response to my application for tree planting.

after that rough day of riding on monday that i talked about earlier i layed low all afternoon until the evening when we went and played volleyball at the public school. im really not that good. i used to have some game because of beach volleyball in the summer but this was bad. i think it was because of my aches, or maybe the cruise ships attached to my feet that i call skate shoes. noooottt ideal for jumpin n stuff m k? can't complain about the exercise though.

did i tell you guys about the doll we have in our room? i don't think so. we named her matilda. she appeared one morning because sara gave it to Ian to put in my bed and freak me out. it fell off and i never even saw it that day. but that was like 2 weeks ago and she's still around. its one of those dolls where when its laying down its eyes are closed but then pop open when you put her upright. so we put her in random unsuspecting places in our room or bathroom or shower to sketch each other out. sometimes it'll just get thrown onto someones bed late at night too or something. man its creepy. but then there are other days we just use her as a blowdart target. we have two blowguns. we tried to kill the fox once but failed. he's a crafty one.

i dunno, do you guys want updates on what i'm up too? or are you here for substance? it just feels like i'm hangin out right now tryin to enjoy myself. its not as shallow or reckless as what the sentence might have implied in the summer though. i'm trying to take things a bit more serious this semester but i'm still not thinkin all that much. so i don't have much to offer. i guess maybe i should read more, that would spark opinions and thoughts in me. i can't say whether that will happen for sure because its rather unappealing, but it would be a step. still doin real good though. tryin to stay active, figure out summer plans, and learn to love people. those are sort of the priorities right now.

J.R.

2009-01-20T11:33:00.000-08:00

the trend will probably look like mid week updates. that is when i have more downtime. weekends are so busy with groups coming in and whatever else that i likely won't write much.

i went snowboarding a few days ago. i was nervous about my rib but i decided it wasn't worth it anymore. a little pain is far more worth the experience than just remaining idle. it didn't turn out bad actually. for the most part it stayed in the backdrop but there were a few mellow falls or where i just sat up where it hurt like the dickens. i don't think i permanently irritated more (like the first time i tried riding last week with the injury). i wish i knew what was wrong just so i had a response to people and to know whether my pain is validated by a legit diagnosis of something that would hurt a lot.

i also mentioned i think that we were going to a snowboard video premier last week. the night started out well. i was hyper. we loaded up everyone and went down to denver to watch that snowboard video premier i mentioned. it was amazing. the video was very very good quality. it was made by "nation foundation" and the video was called One Year. a couple of the pros in it were Andy Finch, Kelly Clark, Eric Oulette. they were there for the premier. they gave away a full snowboard setup, and a bunch of other odds and ends. i got a free shirt.

so that was conclusively a good experience. it was after the show ended that my night started going downhill. all of these things (except one, kind of) are menial, but together it affected me harshly enough. first, we come outside to get in the van and Sara is waiting in her lexus for the kids who came up with her to come out. so I'm like, "hey! can i ride back with you?!?!" and she's like yea sure, of course. so me and a few guys hop in. Dan said thats fine but you have to go tell those people that they are now in a van and its leaving. so i go tell them and they run full speed out into the lot to the car. by the time i get to the car they are all sitting in it and have kicked all of us out. so they ride back in the comfort of a lexus, get to watch a snowboard video on the way back, stop for food, and still get back before the vans. it wasn't so much the transport accomidations that annoyed me (cause i had fun in the van) it was more just how childish they were about it...as if they deserved that much more cause they talked about riding back together? stupid i know. ok so i'm a little annoyed at this point, and then my eye which as been acting up all night is now insisting that i not open it. it was so dry and irritated that i couldn't open it very often at all. these new contacts are bogus. so that is irritating me. all day i was planning on coming back and playing hockey afterward cause curfew isn't until 12 but somehow we managed to get home at some point after 11 (even though the movie was done at around 8:30ish) so that was disappointing too. THEN the worst of it. i realize after being on the road for about 15 or 20 minutes that i left my favourite pinstripe blazer and new black scarf in the theater on my seat. i was so pissed. so basically the rest of the night was a social write off. i didn't want to talk to anyone at all. i just went to bed. i was much much better the following morning. all of that stuff in the scheme of today has no bearing. it didn't that night either, but i decided to give myself the benefit of the mood.

i've been playing hockey nearly every single day. often even twice a day. its superb exercise and i love playing. i want to get into a pick up league when i come back or something because i'm getting pretty good. ravencrest (the other torchbearer school in colorado about an hour away) is coming to visit in february, and we always have a competitive hockey game each year. we're gunna slap em around this year i think.

got to watch some football this past weekend. holy upsets eh? i guess pittsburg isn't but the cardinals weren't supposed to make it past round one. i think they're gunna take it all down. yesterday i hung out with Dan most of the day. we went thrift store shopping and talked over coffee and folk music. i really appreciate being here. i'm aware of how much i need to soak it up. its funny though that i play more hockey than i do snowboard. once i'm fully healthy again from my rib injury i think that might even out though.

i've got a seriously pivotal decision to make about this summer. i got a hold of a tree planting foreman this past week. i just need to send him a resume but i think i could get on board. the cost included though is missing a full month of school as well as a really neat outing at the end of the year to moab utah. i've been looking forward to tree planting and that experience, but it would be hard to leave. there is another opportunity i'm interested in pursuing overseas too for the summer. i wouldn't make as much money but it would be a heck of an experience. mom we gotta talk on the phone in the next day or two...i'd like your input.

i don't have any big thoughts today, but they are hangin around not to far from my mind. i'm sure they'll show up soon.

take care.

J.R. Whitfield

rink rat

2009-01-15T10:09:00.000-08:00

i know its been a while because of christmas and getting settled in here so i thought i`d let you guys know this is the third blog I`ve written since i`ve been back in January in case this is the first time you`ve checked back or something.

Salomon was granted one thing by God and he chose wisdom. in the later part of his life he says that wisdom brings great sorrow. you can tell by his words throughout the book of Ecclesiastes that his heart is very heavy. the opposite to that statement validates it - ignorance is bliss. it doesn't mean ignorance is good. it doesn't mean ignorance will make you more safe and always happy, but you will dodge some amount of sorrow through it. i've been weighing the two options for some time wondering what it is i want. i wouldn't go so far as to say i used to be wise, but i certainly used to question and think through things more. i used to try and figure out how to contribute more than simply absorb. i relate so strongly with Salomon because even though there were a lot of good things surrounding my former self, it was immeasurably harder. think of a 15 year old youth kid in the church who just comes one night every week, plays games, goes through the motions, and then hangs out and has fun the rest of the night within that social network. then compare to one of the elders of that church who is dealing with a list of complications and troubles with either the people or the functions of the church. sure we need those people, but how much easier to be that naive little youth kid? he's accountable to so little.

maybe there is a balance. or maybe it just boils down to an individual thing. some people are stronger than others. so i'm still weighing it out. and it isn`t just faith. love is another perfect example for me. there are some real advantages of being single. you don`t have to answer to someone else, you can flirt or play the field however you please, you don`t have to worry about hurting someone near as much, and you can generally just be more selfish. there is a cost related to a committed relationship. you are accountable to them; you have to answer to them. there is fruit though in that commitment that you will never know or have being single. i mean, its the same as parenting or marriage too. setting myself up for any number of these things scares me but they scare me a bit less as time goes by. I`m sorting through more than one of those things, and i feel like the positive response and submission to one might lead to a gateway of the others. i think it will soften me up.

i'm gunna take a picture this weekend once our ice rink is freshly zambonied. its actually quite impressive. there are really effective lights for playing at night too. two guys here play a LOT of hockey. Nate and Coleson (one of the canadians) are real good. i was told today though by a group that besides those two i am easily the next best player here. its weird i skated twice playing pick up games about 2 years ago. before that i think i was probably 13 years old. when i was home at christmas i skated once on a public outdoor rink and thought `wow this is a lot more natural than i thought it might be`. so i was really excited to skate and play when i got back here. i love hockey. not only the sport (and being competent helps) but the intensive cardio it brings about. its hard to jog with all this snow so i`m gunna depend on skating this semester. actually i`m really excited to play goalie too. i haven`t done it here yet but i played once on ice a couple years ago and loved it.

tonite we`re driving to Denver as a group to watch a video premier showing. its a professional snowboard video but all the riders are Christians, so I`m pretty excited about that. somehow my body allows me with manageable pain to play hockey (because of my rib injury) so this afternoon i`m gunna try snowboarding. i`m sick of it holding me back. so unless the pain is intolerable, screw it i`m riding. i still can`t come close to a push up or sit up. those movements especially spark pain, but other things seem to not irritate it as much.

we`re workin through Ephesians now. also a neat book.

my group i`m going with to Mexico is incredible. great leaders too. because there are two separate groups going. the dates i`m gone are march 13th to 23rd. i emailed a tree planting dude today to hopefully get this plan some wheels. hopefully he hits me back with something good.

J.R. Whitfield

2009-01-14T10:36:00.000-08:00

something interesting found its way into my thought train today. it has to do with our rewards in heaven. the bible talks first about gold paved roads and mansions waiting for us. it also talks about our rewards in heaven for the choices we make here on earth whether thats treasure or crowns or a number of things it mentions. first, doesn't that align itself with other religeons that promise things in the afterlife that appeal to us? its unfortunate that its still like a marketing scheme like anything else we experience daily where we're being sold on it; where its still a "what's in it for me" attitude even though it seems otherwise because of the religeous veil. even making sacrifices here on earth is STILL driven by "what's in it for me". it's just derived from a different set of priorities i guess. and what about these treasures that are storing up for us? what is their purpose in heaven? am i going to be less excited than you about being there if my mound isn't as big? what if my mansion is only two stories and you've got a skyscraper? i can't imagine that we live in there...its not like we cook or sleep or watch tv. or maybe we do, i don't know. but i just don't understand why we're promised these symbols that are rather earthly. is it to create jelousy or pride? heaven indicates we won't experience that. is it so that i feel remorse for not having lived as fruitfully as you did? i can't see how God would arrange this for that function either. maybe its dumb to even try to make sense of it. we don't understand God's ways right? so we have to have faith. still sort of bothers me.

last night was fun.

we had some snacks and watched some stuff together in our room. afterward we started listening to some dance music which, as you may have guessed, translated into dancing...which then lead to babies. what do you know, the church was right. hah, i don't even know if that was cool. anyways, we danced our pants off either way. in spencers case i'm speaking quite literally. we danced so much i had to apply deoderant before bed due to sweat. i'm guessing the candy and iced cream had something to do with it.

mid dance we had a great idea. stefan has a luchador libre mask. that means like a mexican wrestler mask except, it reminds me more of the alien species in halo or something. so its actually super creepy. he broke it out and showed us a couple nights ago while in his underwear and we were truly frightened. even now, knowing what it is and not being surprised its still terrifying just because of his mannerisms. i can't even explain it but its so creepy. so we decided that i would lead the parade out into our hallway in our dorm with a laptop playin some beats while the rest of our room danced in our underwear. then stefan would follow us and we'd creep a bunch of people out. all went as planned, and then the people in the hall after they settled down told us to go into a room where they were watching a movie cause it'd be super creepy. sounds great! i bust it in there first with spencer all the way into the heart of the room and then i realize...everyone but one person is asleep. my laptop light glistens on their confused and half unconcious faces. my dance slows quickly as it settles in. i bust it out of there. we sort of debreifed in our room about what just went down and concluded we'd arrange for a formal apology the next day.

this morning i had shovelling duty so i had to get up at like 6:45. it was actually pretty amazing because i felt great this morning. i think my exact words of description to my roomates was, "i'ts a christmas miracle!!" 6 hours of sleep on top of already being worn out and i felt fantastic today.

we used to be the room everyone envied but now people are starting to dislike us because we spend so much time together as a room. so tonite we're hosting a poker game in our room - little dorm party to soften the masses.

we had workday this afternoon. right now i'm in class. we're studying ecclesiastes which interests me. i've never read it but i know what its about. its sort of close to home for me. so i'm gunna go and get into this.

i'm back

2009-01-12T11:46:00.000-08:00

'm back, and i'm pretty well settled in.

being home was great. i had a wonderful break but by the end of it i concluded that i was ready to be back in Colorado. i didn't expect to hear that out of my mouth either, trust me. i realized though how quickly i bounced back into routine and many of the habits i had formed by the end of this past summer. its amazing how little things change sometimes when we feel as though they have. i still enjoy my vices i guess but i saw the weight of them more when i was home. i think i began to see an end to that life, that either it would catch up to me or i would catch on to it and make the change. the change i just mentioned gets a bit more complicated because i don't know what that looks like. i still don't think i'm ready to embrace faith as my primary motive for things. not yet. but then what am i looking to do? just don't do bad stuff? treat people good? i dunno. maybe it will lead me back to faith cause maybe that is the answer. i'll figure out a way to be better though. i have too.

i'm still excited about being young. i want to take responsibility for my financial affairs and perhaps some direction for my future. sooner or later i'm gunna slip into my career, but i'm not that eager. in the next year or two i'm sure, but there are still some exciting opportunities i'd love to go after while i still can. more on that as it developes, but i've got an idea or two.

so my trip back here was a bit interesting. got up at like 4:30, made our way to the airport, and then got pulled over at the border but after 10-15 minutes was released with a legit stamp this time. i actually really enjoy travelling alone. you don't have to be looking around constantly for your group or running on someone elses schedule or agenda. you can just do your thing and make sure you're on top of your flight info. get a coffee, grab a mag, people watch, walk around, whatever. everything seems much less stressful. i met up with a few other classmates who were flying out of new york with me back to denver. then in denver i lost my bag. i'm not exactly sure what happened but the dude concluded someone took my bag and would return it soon so they took my info and crap. it arrived the following morning at 2am or something. kind of a nuissance. i've never had that happen to me or a group i've been with before. then i had the priveledge of spending 60 dollars on a shuttle back to school. so between 2 bag checks, food, and shuttle, i spent over a hundred bucks, and 14 hours worth of travel that day.

the following day we spent a couple hours at a staffs house just eating, drinking, and catching up. it was a nice time to socialize without any other agenda. that very afternoon we already had workday. i mean, its kind of understandable because maintanence just had 3 weeks of no help around here, and we had to prepare some things for the group coming in the next night, but people were pretty upset that the day after we get back in we already have a workday. that night we played broomball and then a game of hockey. so broomball you just wear shoes and you use a stick with this plastic tipped thing at the bottom. then its pretty well like hockey. its much more difficult than you think and its funny to watch cause everything looks like its in slow motion. i had two game winning goals. then hockey. i love it. i shouldn't have played cause i was already way overspent physically but i did. that was fun. before that game started though randall fell on his face and got 4 stitches in his chin.

i forgot something else. thursday right before lunch we had a mens class. we usually do some cool stuff for mens class and this was no exception. they took us in our snow gear to a parking lot where there was like a 15-20 foot high drift. it had frozen so it was mostly ice. we were going to play king of the hill. the matchups went by room, and then there was 'dudes with wives' which was just zane and dan. so our room makes it to the finals against dudes with wives. 3 guys in our room are down so i'm wrestling with zane and everything is going well, i was feeling confident. then what seemed innocent enough turned out terrible. zane and i fall over sideways and i land on my exposed ribs on a very stiff mound of ice. i basically went limp and got thrown off. zane didn't realize. i just thought i got the wind knocked out of me or something real bad but it lingered and lingered. jump to current day. when i cough, sneeze, laugh, take a deep breath, bend over/compress my ribs, try to even get up from sitting on the floor, roll over in bed...and on and on...i experience what feels like a spike being driven into my rib just under my armpit. i tried to do a pushup yesterday because our room is doing a real sweet push up challenge and literally shouted as soon as i put the weight on my arms. i think its gotten worse, so i don't know what i've done but it sucks. and there is really no sense in going to the doctor because even if it were cracked or something they can't do anything about it except tell me to stay off it. so that is a huge dampener. i can't snowboard really, i can't play hockey really, and i can't workout.

my new room for this semester is amazing. its Ian, Stefan, Spencer R (dreads), Ryan, and me. the first night back we pulled our matresses off the beds and had a sleepover together on our floor. then yesterday we went shopping together and got all kinds of sweet stuff like hand soap, a bath rug, air fresheners, candy, candles, a dish towel...it was awesome. we have a few other things on the agenda too like glow in the dark stars for our ceiling. we're gunna buy like a thousand and make some gallexys. we're also gunna buy some sweet mountain paintings from the thrift store for our room. there are other items but i'd have ot look at our team shopping list to remember. last night we had another room night where ian baked us these intense cake cookies with icing, and then we watched a movie. we do a lot of room stuff together. its ballin. virtually everyone wants to be in our room.

i'll try to write once or twice a week. when i leave it for too long its hard to remember ad i overlook lots of things. so hopefully i'll improve on my frequency.

good to be back.
and it was good seeing all of you.

almost home

2008-12-09T11:43:00.000-08:00

I’ve been slacking I know. This will be my last update before I leave for New York. We leave tomorrow morning at 5am, meaning we have to be up by at least 4:30. Dude that’s rugged. I’m either going to bed tonight at 9, or at 2 cause 4 or 5 hours of sleep just wrecks you. 2 hours is great nap though. I think I’ve told most of you this but I’m dreading New York. I mean, I love the city and I love Christmas but this is not a vacation. 6 o clock mornings, duties (cleaning stuff, washing dishes, and who knows what else.), having to be on a rigged schedule of ministries and obligations, having to share your testimony or a devotion, even at the point of a finger. Have you ever thought of the idea of mission’s trips? First of all, I question the validity altogether of missions. Aside from a small and unique group of individuals I agree are maybe ‘called’ to missions, I think its sort of silly. That’s just me, I’ve never had a heart for missions. I’ve felt like its an excuse for Christians to get out of the mission field they are already in, maybe because it would be easier for them to share somewhere else. On the surface we’re pretty collected in North America but there is probably as much brokenness here as anywhere else. Second, how strange is it that we pay thousands of dollars to go somewhere to work for people and function under their ideals. I know that’s bold, and I know its insensitive. As Christians we’re to have servant hearts and giving hearts so we ought to be glad to serve and go on these trips. But seriously, It is weird – us paying them to go and work.

I’m being critical I know. And I know that people can have significant impacts on areas they go to serve both spiritually and economically. Beyond what we bring to people during missions, I also know that the people we go to serve end up transforming us too. It’s kind of like a youth retreat for adults. Things are brought back into perspective and you get all fired up for a little while. Again, just thinking. Hopefully God does something in my heart to have more sympathy and understanding for those who have a heart for missions. Especially Mexico may do that. The same way I never had a burning passion for some third world country, perhaps some people cannot find that passion for our communities.

Whew, I didn’t even plan on talking about missions.

Been snowboarding a lot. I’m enjoying it more now than I was a the beginning of the year. 3 or 4 times a week we either set up rails and booters in our backyard, or we’re at the mountain.

I can’t remember if I told you in my last update either that we built a bunch of snow forts. The one we built could have fit 7 or 8 students in it. Somethin fierce.

Still running quite a bit. I’m hovering around -10 pounds since when I got here. Not bad since I’ve been workin out so much and adding muscle too. I’m excited to be at home and be able to run on asphalt instead of snow. Even though its often about 20 degrees here its super tolerable because there is no humidity. So I’m wondering what cold is gunna feel like back home. That, and how much thicker the air is gunna be.

I’m in a class right now where a discussion between free will and predestination is going down. Not only am I kind of turned of that people dwell on this type of thing but I’m even more annoyed that people argue predestination. Last time I checked the story of creation, God was very intentional in giving us a choice. If God absolutely knew all things since the beginning then He saw beforehand that we would be where we are morally – both as Christians and non-Christians. That means that he was willing to have a dominant majority bound to a life of suffering and hell to serve the ransom for the very few who would eventually be united with him. And isn’t that selfish?! So lets say that God knew 80% of people would never walk in His steps, but that’s fine as long as some people were worshipping him? That would also mean that since God knows absolutely all things to come, that means our outcomes our bound by that rail called predestination. Of course we don’t know what that outcome is, but how messed up is that there would be people who God knows are going to hell regardless of the efforts of Christians or the efforts of the individual to figure it out. It’s a slippery argument. Not worth dwelling on either in my opinion.

The one thing I cannot shake is that God used to offset my selfishness. I don’t want God. I can’t overcome some things just yet but I do know I am embarrassingly more selfish than I used to be. I used to have reasons o fight it. Maybe I used to have ‘help’ to fight it through Christ. Now I’ve just embraced it and its pretty gross. But I think I’m moving away from it. Something happened this past weekend that I’m not going to describe in detail, but a number of students including me broke some rules here and honestly, I hated it afterward. And this was something I’ve done before and enjoyed, but my conscience had had enough or something this time. I think since I’ve been talking to my mom a lot more recently, and with Jen, I feel more accountable to whom I am. So it was bittersweet I suppose. There will be consequences for it I’m sure. I think we’re talking to Dan later today because they already know. I’m glad I was so disappointed in myself and I’m glad it was unappealing. I don’t feel like this is a pivotal turning point but I think it is a push in that direction. It certainly made me think; made me consider what is actually important to me. I’ve got another semester to figure some of that out.

I’m still frustrated and bitter with God and with people. I’m still scared to death of change – more specifically returning back to the old me. I’m still confused, even though I have some seemingly strong opinions. And I’m still shallow because that is the foundation that allows me to function the way I do. The thing I miss most is Love. God granted me the capacity to Love, and my passion for life and people facilitated that love.

We’ll see. Stay tuned. And see you soon.

J.R. Whitfield

the concert, and then some...

2008-11-25T15:54:00.000-08:00

I’m often reluctant to blog. I love writing when I get started, but thinking about Coldplay and trying to break it down for you guys intimidates me. I haven’t really sifted through those thoughts yet so I guess that’s what this is for. I am confident with the way I structure my expression of thought, but after reading through this I feel so redundant in my vocabulary, grammar, and sentence structure; it feels juvenile. Fortunately for me, none of that really counts for anything here. So I’m sorry if I’m a touch off my game today.

I know the last few blogs have been real intense so my hope is that this one is lighter. I needed to get those out of my system and I can’t promise that will be the last of them. I’ve been under the impression that family and a few friends check this thing but ever since the arguable controversy of my last few posts I’ve been informed of many other people that read my thoughts. It’s surprising but also intimidating. I’m not ashamed of me. I love talking to people and being real with them, but wow, I have to admit I’m a touch more gun-shy now. I do appreciate all of your support and responses. The single most encouraging thing since this new journey I’ve set out on (putting all I’ve known to the fire to see what survives it) is the patience and tolerance of the people in my life. You all deserve to be applauded for outlasting and debunking stereotypical Christian responses that the world might place on you. People have been supportive, they’ve listened and understood, they still VALUE me as an individual even though our priorities may not line up, and I still feel loved. That is huge. There may not be an awful lot any of you can do about me and where I am (and that’s ok) but one thing you can do is all of these things I mentioned. It doesn’t go unnoticed. I’m sorry for all the confusion and disappointment that some of you may or may not be experiencing. Hang in there…this is a process.

The concert…
We spent all day Friday at our outreaches. Mine is dry bones in Denver so when I was finished I met up with a couple other students who were going to the concert. We shopped a bit and then got sushi since we had time before it started. We finally meet up at the Pepsi Centre at our seats and the first band started playing shortly after. They were terrible. I mean, I guess from another vantage if it were a different night at a different venue they may have been okay, but in anticipation for the immensity of Coldplay they were minimized in my mind. The songs were generic and the mix was disappointing. I don’t even know what the band was called.

The second band was altogether different. It wasn’t a band; it was one man with a projector. To summarize the experience I would call it artistic, creative, and kind of that modern expression of individual originality that we’re more tolerant than ever of these days. I think his name was Jon Hopkins. Basically he was a DJ mixing beats while video was going on behind him through the projector. The media stuff reminded me a LOT of Dr. Seuss, like trippy repetitive cartoon stuff. I don’t think the people I was with liked it that much and I’m kind of surprised that I was so intrigued by it but it was definitely an interesting experience. Kind of like Cirque De Soliel (I’m stretching, I know) how it is so weird but at the same time you are in awe.

The sheer scale of this concert was enough to overwhelm me. The most I’ve ever paid for concert tickets is maybe 20 bucks, so when I dropped 55 for nose bleed seats I wasn’t at all comfortable with that. The Pepsi Centre is real big. I mean it’s a typical professional arena. We happened to be there the weekend prior for Dare 2 Share if you remember.

I don’t even know where to start. I guess with what it looked like. There were about 8 large balls hanging from the ceiling and then one very large ball, which they lit up according to the lighting theme for any given song. Sometimes they did some live video stream or video effects through the balls too, which was interesting. The stage stretched along the entire main floor surface, and then protruded on either side out into the crowd. At the end of one of these extensions was another small stage that was made up of white-lit boxes on the floor where they played one or two songs. I can’t remember the backdrop entirely because it changed in progressively breath-taking manors throughout the concert. I will say that it was always appealing and it stretched from the ground to the ceiling. Another thing was the lighting. I’ve seen some good headliners who used well-coordinated lighting before but nothing at all like this. The timing and power of the light system was incredible. As for how they dressed, the guys all looked awesome. They all felt like they belonged there. There is nothing more frustrating than seeing a band you really value and then notice that there is one (if not more) of their members who just demand a critical and judgmental eyeball. They throw off the entire band. Everyone in Coldplay just fit – all 4 of em. They had a bit of a typical band look to them but its not like they were trying to look young or generic, they just looked good. At the same time also, they had that clear European look to them, which I appreciated. They didn’t rock out so hard that it was awkward, like they were trying too hard, but they definitely moved; a really healthy look while playing music because you believe they are into what they are doing. I think that’s a pretty thorough picture of the main visual details.

This was a highly professional display of musical ability. They deserve to play in arenas and go on worldwide tours. I guess to describe it, I would say they were secure and mature enough musicians to lay low during songs but had the potential to steal every ounce of your attention if and when they each chose too. That is when you know you’re seeing a good band. They don’t feel like they need to relentlessly impress you with stuff that doesn’t necessarily sound good, but perhaps is just hard to play. They would bust it out in tiny windows though throughout the performance just to remind you they could. The singing was astounding. I’m a little bit paranoid when it comes to performances of this scale and trying to decipher what is legitimate and what has been tampered with or doctored. Hearing the ways that he would creatively sing the melodies or just talk there was no question that it was pure. And he was good. Not just him though, every member sang and they were all good. So we’re talking thick harmonies all over the place. Another major problem with many bands is they overemphasize things on their records, but then if you’re lucky there is only one guy in the band doing harmonies. Probably weak harmonies. The sound above all of this was ideal. I was nervous beforehand, but it turned out so well. The only problem I had was that there wasn’t enough bass in the mix but that could have had something to do with where my seat was.

As for song selection it couldn’t have been better. I’m a reasonably fickle Coldplay fan, so up until this last album I basically heard singles and maybe a few full listens above that. I love this latest album through and through, so I was pretty confident in this show since it is a tour for that record. They probably played 2 songs that weren’t singles (which I still recognized), then 5 or 6 singles from other albums and then the rest from Viva. Mmmmaaybbbeee 15 total?

The entire night was a highlight but if I had to talk about a few specific ones I might choose these:
During the middle of the concert he just said something and then, “see you guys in a bit” and I’m like, what? So they all run across the arena floor to the back and then up to the top of the first section where there happened to be a stage. They bust out three acoustic-ish guitars (they weren’t typical guitars) and play scientist. Oh, and the lead singer played a harmonica. It was a pretty good push to the ever-growing climax. My favorite part of the night was Fix You. He led the song by himself and cracked a superb joke about the band taking a break to go drink and email their girlfriends, but then, come to “lights will guide…” the harmonies kicked in. It was so beautiful. And then of course you remember the build at the end (“tears stream down your face when you lose something you can not replace”). I think I almost lost it I was so worked up and emotional. Hah, actually I wasn’t going to say this but I decided too because its funny. That song felt exactly like the moment in church when you feel the music moving toward its’ climax and “the spirit is moving”. I almost wanted to lift my hands it was so stirring. Haha, Such a spiritual-like experience in such a spiritual-less context. I know at least one of you who would want to argue me saying that place had no spiritual credit. I guess I could argue that too. Either way, I’ll never forget that. I might have taken a video of it on my camera. Lastly, after a strong and unwavering 10-minute eruption at the end of the show, they came back out for the encore made up of Yellow. The lights were all in strong yellow theme, and they had explosions of confetti from the ceiling a few times during the song too. It was like a celebration – the perfect send-off.

We went and lingered around town a little while longer after the concert until finally heading home. I hope that breakdown was sufficient but not exhausting.

And then some…
The weather has been strange as of late. We had a real warm week and haven’t really seen significant or lasting snow for a while now. The week prior to that it snowed almost everyday. So the mountain is in rough shape. They’ve got a legit base but it’s rather icy. Even given the ice, people here still ride almost every day. Yesterday for outdoor education we went snowboarding all day. Pretty rough huh? Didn’t even have a choice. Had to go to the mountain all day! Actually, even though it was busy and icy we all had a great day. We’ve had about 8 minor injuries in this past week alone. 2 or 3 sprains, one fracture, one broken nose, a couple tree accidents, and then countless bruises. I’m terribly sore but I think I’m going for a few hours again this afternoon. But I’m not going alone, I’m bringing my best friend Tylenol. I’ve noticed some real improvements in my game. There aren’t many hits in the park and everything is too icy to get serious. There are only 3 runs open thus far, so basically we’re just working the flat-ground game. Yesterday I got switch 180 butter 180, noseslide 270, nollie 360, and a few other neat little things. If my regular riding is 100% then I probably ride switch at about 80%, so I’m getting quite comfortable. It’s a lot of fun and it drastically affects overall board control when you fool around and get stuff like that. It’ll be interesting when we get some true snow and the mountain opens up to its potential. Hope I get a taste before Christmas. And I hope some you folk come ride next semester.

The ice rink here has been active and used for roughly a week now too. There are about 3 serious hockey players here, and there is a handful of aspiring hockey players who are out there all the time. I haven’t even gotten out once yet. Every time I think about going I get lazy or reluctant, but one of these nights I will. Next semester we’ll skate an awful lot I’m sure. I need to get my skate legs back. It’d be so straight to get good and come play pick up back home next year.

I realized the other day on the phone that after losing the two most meaningful things in my life (faith and love), I discovered an identity for myself and that’s why I felt the way I did. Not that it was the right identity but it was my own. I was faced with one of these things the other night and even though I wanted it I realized I couldn’t because it contradicted who I now was. Of course that isn’t completely sound reasoning, I could be me and still engage those things, but they flood too many memories of someone different that I didn’t entirely like. My hesitance is now clear to me because I make the connection from being a Christian or being in a relationship to many of the things I used to hate about myself. That is at the forefront of my infrequent thoughts – how to think seriously about those things without disowning the positive things I’ve discovered. Both are valuable and both are appealing to me not now but perhaps somewhere in my future.

I think about Christmas and those three weeks almost everyday. A warm festive home, family, catching up with friends, football games, poker tournaments, birthdays, new years, and on and on. Its gunna be a memorable few weeks. I’ll try to give you all as much attention as I can.

Take care and live like you mean it.

Brought to you by Jimmy.

i'm sorry..

2008-11-19T21:00:00.001-08:00

I’ve shown a tremendous amount of cynicism in my last few posts and I’d like to address that. I’ve felt bad about it actually because I’ve been very insensitive and perhaps overly agressive. Someone cautiously confronted me about it today and suggested that I sound rather angry and at a loss for tact. I understand. Even though I do what I can to negate blanket statements I still am referring to Christians, and assuming that the dozen or so people reading this blog are all Christians I know why it may be more offensive because it’s something you value a great deal. When I say something like “Christians have no backbone” I am not implying that all of you have no backbone. I love every one of you and do not want to deliberately attack any of you. These are just thoughts I wrestle with through this vehicle called “blogspot”. I am sorry if I’ve offended you. I’m going to comment on a couple other things, and then I’m going to give you the opportunity to speak into this.

You have options regarding how you respond to what I write. You can choose to be thankful that I am allowing you to know me better through this no matter how ugly or controversial my posts may be. By themselves, my words are not weapons and I don’t think they are harmful to you. You will decode what I say to draw conclusions about me and then you will do one of two other things while reading my nonsense. You will get defensive and perhaps even pissed off at me for being as frank as I am, or you will choose to challenge yourself and your beliefs to see if they line up or contradict with what I say. This is what I propose to you. Firstly, do not take me severely literal. Try to almost detach from your first response to my thoughts, give yourself a second to think about it of course, and then look at it for what it is and not who I am. Use it as a tool if you must. To respond the first way I mentioned, I think, might even reveal a degree of spiritual immaturity. If you are secure within your spirit then wrestle with what I say and disprove it in your own heart (or even in an email if you feel like responding to me). Think of times that nullify my claims because of what you’ve experienced, or study the necessary material to discredit my words. I don’t think it’s unreasonable for us to disagree. I just feel like what you do with this raw information is really in your hands, and I’m sorry if I make it a challenge.

So, if you still feel like I’m approaching this poorly in a rather public manner through this blog, then email me. Seriously, I will hear you out. I may respond but I do care about what you guys think.

I’m not as negative as my blogs might imply. I’m actually rather positive but when it comes to these various topics I tend to throw heaters. Aside from these things, my other options to discuss seem rather menial. When I am with you soon at Christmas I will not appear the way I do on here, because I won’t be talking about this stuff that often. But I think it’s valuable for me and perhaps for you that I confront these things on here. I was trying to think of something positive to report on to possibly outweigh the rest of this but I can’t even think of specific things. Everything else is great. People are great, snowboarding is great, music is great, getting in shape is great…life is good. No doubt.

This isn’t the most ideal environment for such immense topics to come to life. I’d much rather do it over coffee or beer with someone sincere so that different lights might be shed respectively, and even more, so that there could be a valid response to these types of things I say. I hope I never imply that what I say is truth because I’m not at all sure that it is! But it very much holds weight in my heart and mind just like many things do with you. I like writing on here, but the one problem is that it’s just an opinion. I’m not a big fan of opinions, and maybe that’s why I hate class so much. Preaching and teaching is often an opinion and aside from unique circumstances you can’t have legitimate discussion about it. Hopefully we’ll drink lots of coffee together when I come home 

that’s all tonite.

2008-11-17T20:35:00.000-08:00

had a pretty interesting weekend. spent friday and saturday in denver as i mentioned at a dare to share conference in the Pepsi center. friday night we stayed at some mansion that literally was accomidating about 50 of us. so, the event itself was neat in some ways but unfortunate in many others. remember when we were that age? like, pitch and praise, kingdom bound, even winter retreat...you sort of become some one else in those situations. more than becoming someone else i guess you just ARE someone else entirely than who we'd say we are now. everyone is so unspeakably needy and LOUD. loud with their cloths, loud with their abnormal behaviours (namely for attention or respect from peers), and just straight up loud volumes.

these things are unfortunate because its so so abnormal. the event is abnormal and the the bubble that kids are thrown into isn't real life - just like missions or bible school or whatever the case. the object is to basically captivate addolecent senses through media, music, words, and maybe a few tricks. get them all wound up and then unLEASH them into the world right? meh. i bet their talkin smack about their friends by the end of the following week, if not monday. i loved those events when i was in youth, and i understand some of the arguments trust me, but man is it ever wierd seeing it at this age and this stage. its absolutely queer in almost every respect when wholly evaluated. i escaped downtown during the event once or twice though to get a breath of fresh air both literally and figuratively.

one other thing about the conference is Zane. i've talked about him a bit. i really need to get a picture up. he dresses so so well and so so originally i guess, first off. second, he is probably good enough to be a legit am snowboarder and third, he's a super effective teacher. so we all love him here of course but this weekend shed such a different light. this dude is seriously a christian celebrity. he's one of the main faces for dare to share and the kids just soak him up like a sponge on steroids. he had a few shirts at the merch table that were specifically designed with/for him, he has a book called "shred the gnar" he just published, and he's kind of starting this other ministry called "christ plus nothing". we were walkin around and as he was standing giving autographs to this massive line of kids he's all shoutin us out and stuff right? well we jokingly start offering his phone number for 5$ to kids. this one girl? she offered us 36$. wierd huh? yea, so wierd.

leeland was good. there was also a band called fee who was okay. the mix was a bit disappointing. so i hope the sound for coldplay this friday is a lot better. oh wait, did i forget to tell you? i'm seeing coldplay on friday! it was bloody spensive but this is once in a lifetime type stuff. and i think its one of those bands you kind of need to see, especially after that last monster of an album. I'm gunna make sure to soak it in as best i can and then reflect a thorough response back at you.

winter park opens on wednesday. i think i said it was this past weekend maybe but its wednesday. unfortunately tonite we went up to the top of the pass to ride a bit and i messed up my knee again. i think its sprained or something cause i have no strength. its not too too uncommon for my knee to just buckle during the day and me fall over. might need to get a brace or something when i come home. i hope i get to ride before christmas though cause i bet its a bad idea.

has anyone ever thought a lot about corporate prayer? cause i have been more recently. add it to the list i suppose, but it annoys the lasting goodness out of me. the reason we give group prayer so much credibility is probably based on "where two or more are gathered, there I am also". lets pause and look at that first. what?! soooo, God shows up where there is at least two people right? well, either he's God and he is everywhere with everyone at all times or our faith is restricted to God encounters only where there is more than one person? its silly for me to even expand. we all know you've experienced and been with God on your own before so what the heck is the point of this verse? so we can throw it out in church and big rallies for emphesis that God is around MORE right now than when you're praying at home? its stupid. before i go on here is my token disclaimer: these statements are in no way ever perfectly inclusive of all people in all situations, but from what i know and observe, they are a relatively strong representation of the christian population. what exactly do you DO during group prayer? like, do we all kind of play a role and its a team thing? ooorrr are we just there to get inspired by others audible thoughts? oorrr i dunno i guess. There are prayer warriors like my mom and maybe some of yours. i'm sure you know at least one good example. i suppose some of their responses would be affirmation of the prayer at least mentally if not verbally. but even that...is it one of those things we do to show we're more intentional and bold in our faith? or does it actually AMPLIFY our prayers to God?! to be honest, most people just look around. they're probably thinking about very menial things. maybe sometimes important things like song orders or prayer requests they need to remember, but most people don't actually pay true attention. wowee does that area of discussion fire me up.

another thing is that christians have no backbone. this isn't an uncommon observation, even within the christian community but sledom does the trend change at all. some people worship with all their hearts, and some people truly respect the communion table but i bet most don't. have you ever really looked at the blank eyes of people as they worship? chances are they either aren't thinking of the words, or they are thinking very conciously about how they sound or how they look as they worship. their mouths move and you can tell its for the sake of avoidence - avoidence of conflict or being called out on or being thought less of. just don't sing if it means nothing! most people probably mean it more when they're singin in their cars to random songs than during formal worship. you see it plague worship TEAMS let alone worship congregations. and the communion table...God help christians. i often imagine how many people take communion that are pissed off at their parents, or are stealing from work, or are cheating in a relationship, or are maybe just as mediocre as they come and have not prepared their hearts for this foundational 'act'. severe or simple i don't think it matters. my word. Its not mine to judge, but i wonder how many people you would see pass the plate if you took a good look around. probably not nearly enough. cause its easier to just take it. its easier to play the role. thats a good reflection of a much bigger picture - the entirity of what they believe and are moved by. and for goodness sake, what is the point of prayer before meals? i mean, i understand the point but stop being thankful for your food and only your food. it is no more a blessing than the legs that are still attached to your torso. do you religeously wake up every single morning and thank God for your health? do you feel guilty if you MISS a morning? maybe you do. do you thank him for your car, or do you gripe about the A/C not working and how the system in it sucks? the point being, its such a thing 'we do' that i don't know if i could ever agree with it again.

sorry about that.

this took a along time so I'm gunna go. but i'll check in early next week at the latest.

this is jimmy

2008-11-12T12:31:00.000-08:00

i'm really bad at this blog thing.

i would be disappointed if i were you guys. how long has it been, a couple weeks? whenever i get on a computer i find a thousand other things i'd like to get too and when i think of writing i get overwhelmed by all that has happened that i haven't written about yet. I'll do my best to remember some highlights.

actually, i just decided that i'm not gunna update you on specific things that are happening day to day. there is plenty of stuff but you'll be fine not knowing. the one thing i will tell you is that copper mountain had opening day this past saturday and we went. there was only 2 lifts open but it was still great. it had one small terrain park too. i kind of already knew this, but i realized even more that i don't even love snowboarding that much. i mean, i enjoy it but basically only in this context: 3-4 hours on the mountain tops, only about an hour or two at most on actual runs and the rest in the park. i get really bored riding runs. sure some are steeper than others and might have a few noteable differences, but basically you get 70 runs that are all the same deal. i dunno. my knee and my wrist were both acting up on me. i had a wrist brace luckily. this weekend winter park opens. its 5 minutes away from us.

also this weekend is Dare 2 Share. Zane (a leader here) is one of the main guys in D2S so all of us are helpin out with either merch or security or a number of other things. its a two day ordeal in denver at the pepsi center, so its pretty legit. Leeland is gunna be there.

my goodness...the detroit lions are terrible. i know i chirp about em all the time. most of the people that read this blog i have probably talked to personally about our situation with the team. i have that simple and rather unwaivering faith since i've only been around 2 years with the team, but i still am emotionally spent every sunday around 2 o clock here when the game finishes.

i'm fasting today. i don't even know how too do something like this anymore. i don't even pray unless I'm called upon too. so it should be interesting. i just decided that my decision to stay or go must be made in literally the next couple days and i've talked to everyone i can think of about what i should do...except God. so i'm giving him a window. if he wants to speak into this or put something on my heart this is his chance.

i'm really looking forward to christmas. i'll get to see most of you hopefully, i'll get to celebrate my b-day, and hopefully stay quite busy while i'm home. i was talkin to heather the other day about bein home and excited and stuff and she pointed out how different this year is gunna look. heather has lost over 20 pounds, so she's gunna look pre different to me at least. i've lost some weight, put on some muscle, shaved my head, pierced my ears, and will also look pretty different. and then there is genelle who will have an 8 month old baby in her. hehe. i'm excited about that. real excited. mom and dad, you should start thinking about something drastic you can do too to follow suite.

i've just got one new thought for today. it might make some of you uncomfortable, i dunno. and again, i need you guys to understand that this is just me thinking. i may feel what i think to varrying degrees at different times but i'm just thinking is all. i know i've had this thought with a few of you before but it still lingers with me. and it is this. what if we give Jesus too much credit sometimes? calm down, calllmmm ddooowwn. i'm no scholar, but i've been in the word enough to have an idea of who he is and i know there is abundant evidence that he was extraordinary. he did miracles, he was perfectly pure and selfless, he lived a blameless life...i know. i'm not really argueing that. that is what it is if we believe the bible is true. i guess i wonder more about the death of him and the basis for people literally and figuratively giving their lives to him. there are people throughout the world that die CONSTANTLY, and many of them die for lesser causes than the salvation of the entire human race. they might die for family, for their country, for simply their thoughts, for themselves, and i'm sure there are plenty more reasons while people die for causes each day. real people with real pain and real fears. there is also evidence both in the bible and more recently in the middle east of people being crucified. its not like some immense historical event because only a few people ever died that death. i bet piles of people did. and this is where i wonder about "the cost": don't you think that if you KNEW God like Jesus did (and technically you WERE God), and you knew heaven because you've lived there all your life, and the only way to save billions and billions of lives was to die on earth after a short life, and you KNEW without a shadow of a doubt that you were just gunna live again after that in heaven and be praised and never have to worry again about paying that price...don't you think that if you knew all that stuff like jesus did that it would be a bit of a no brainer? that you'd be able to go through with it? at least for me, i know that my motives and choices are driven by cost versus payoff. so in this case, the cost seems pretty tolerable standing next to the outcome. i know i sound crazy and you're all half squinting at the screen with your mouth half open wondering what the heck i'm talking about, but honestly i just don't feel like its as MASSIVELY unspeakable of a cornerstone than we perpetually give it credit for. maybe it is, i just have to find out how to make that click for me. i suppose the bottom line is that he didn't in any way deserve that death and we in no way deserved that death....fine. another thing that just came to me and that perplexes me is how much christians stumble and struggle with the idea of following christ but just ignore it. many people respond too it and fall away, its just funny watching christians from my perspective have these unanswerable questions or daunting barriers where they have little to no reason to hang on, but its like they just ignore it. well, they don't ignore it maybe but they call it faith. its so illogical. i guess its perserverence. all of this stuff is so subjective, i know. man do i ever know and i'm thankful. you do not need to be where i am and its ok that i'm not where you are.

something terribly humbling came upon me today. when i talk to people i paint this picture of a rather legalistic faith i used to have. among many other things, i pretty well could have stopped at "i used to be at church as many as 3 or 4 times a week, easy". i understand why they create that picture in their minds, because i provide it, yet, in the same breath i deny that it was legalistic. i assure or correct them that it was real and authentic and sincere. i've always sort of felt that i lay between the two ends and had a balanced understanding. i want to clarify before i continue that i knew God. i did. i experienced him, i worked for him, i desired to know him, and my intent was often pure i believe. but today i realized something. paul used to be all of those things. paul memorized the old testament, he never missed a day of church, he prayed all the time, he tithed the required amount, he fed the poor, he knew all the stories - he was doing what he knew how to be righteous and yet, he was a pharisee. he persecuted God's true church and was the very person that christ came to speak against. he had every check marked on the religeous list yet he had nothing. something drastic happened of course where he met and embraced christ which brought about change. excuse my language but this is actually Paul's words. when it was being translated the translators were even somewhat ashamed or uncomfortable by paul's words, but it shows how serious and passionate he was. he basically said about the things he knew and had done for God's sake up til that point didn't amount to shit; it was rubbish. i thought i was in the right all my life - struggling but succeeding in Christ. but what made me any different than Paul? i was the ideal pedigree. if you saw my spiritual resume you'd probably have raised your brow just slightly, but what true depth was there in my simple trust and faith in God day to day. i know that this place i speak of (where Paul eventually was during most of his ministry) is spoken of often in the christian community and we would all agree that its a righteous and dependant place to be with God, but how do you get there? how do you take away the age old checklist and just....be. there is nothing to hold on to firmly or strive toward or to achieve it seems, its just a simple dependance on christ's love and his ability to live out that love in our common lives. it feels like one of those christian things we say or think without really knowing a lot of the time, but its always the right answer. we had that talk about a book/topic based upon "christ in me". its so cliche but how many of us have a clear grasp on what that even looks like. its arguable and it makes for a good discussion rather than opinion on my part. to sum it up, i was humbled by realting to paul and agreeing that perhaps my spiritual health was always just slightly skewed. if/when i am restored i see it looking differently. i want to know more than any other thing that i have and experience everyday freedom in christ. not depression, or stress, or jeleousy, or judgment, or addiction...i want to know a simple freedom.

i'm slowly becoming a sports junkie. its cool. when i come home i definitly picture myself coppin an LCD with satelite so i can tap into lots of sports. oh, and a cell phone i can actually use! count on it.

i'm hungry. its gunna be a long day.

look forward to seeing and talking to you all.

Jimmy.

2008-10-30T16:30:00.000-07:00

I wasn’t going to respond even though I agreed to last night (addressed to mom and dad) because I feel like I’ve explained everything so many times, but I’m in class right now typing and have nothing better to do, so here goes. And rather than email, I may as well inform all cause I have nothing to hide. I’m going to attempt to explain further where I am. I think I expanded in my last blog as to HOW I sort of got here but hopefully this is even more informative. For those of you who have sat down and listened this may be redundant, just to warn you.

So I experienced that slow and steady breakdown of failures and questions during the latter part of my walk. I was depressed and constantly tired because of the way I was consumed with my problems. Once I finally concluded that my approach to life was leaving me short of satisfaction I decided to take a step of faith…away from God. Now, because of the way I isolated myself from my peers in high and college I was “protected” from a great deal of things. Splendid right? What if I said not at all? I think that that caused damage in a lot of ways because rather than dealing with those things then, when I still had close and grounded friends, I’m dealing with them now when I’m more my own then ever, and free to make my own conclusions with less input from others compared to when we were younger. It also wreaked havoc on the way I saw people outside of church. In order to protect myself from “those terrible people and those terrible things” (that I actually wanted) I made them out to be completely foolish and dangerous.

I will try to breakdown some of the changes that have taken place since that turning point. Firstly I am happy. It would be utterly naïve as Christians to think you can’t live life without Christ – billions of people do it. Many of those people are messed the heck up but don’t pretend that many of those people aren’t doing well too. Not to mention the turmoil within the Christian community. I feel like faith is so subjective on both who you are and WHERE you are. There are countless other religions who all have real convictions and real feelings toward their God’s. Otherwise they wouldn’t go to such extreme lengths. People all over the world look at Christians and sincerely say to themselves “it’s a shame those people are so lost and confused” and then probably pray we get saved from our lies. We’re no different I think we were just presented a different “out” than them. If you spend enough time and thought and energy doing ANYthing it’s not that hard to buy in. So no wonder God requires us to be constantly in him and not of everything else. No wonder you go on a mission’s trip or to bible school or wherever excessive amounts of God are and you “feel God”. Then you come home to normality and lose him because you aren’t worshiping 3 times a day and praying for hours. It’s not that much of a stretch. Why are we right? Why are there people who have NEVER known God that are better by nearly every standard then handfuls of people who wear Christ’s name. God works in brokenness right? I tend to agree, except that instead of working when I was messed it fell apart in my weakness. Right now though, I’m self sufficient and satisfied with who I am. I think I treat people better in most cases even though I lack the compassion and patience I once did because, I’m not so focused on fixing and figuring me out. It gives me time and energy to look outward more at people and I’m free to engage them.

Another thing I should make clear is I still have standards; I still have morals. They are in many ways shaped by my family (which I am thankful for) but they are also very independent of my family and of God. I can’t tell you how liberating that is for me. I still want to be good in many senses, I still want to be successful and work hard, I still want to have intention towards things but my cause and reason for doing those things is for me. Yes me. Yes I’m selfish, so are you. Perhaps I’ve just embraced and accepted it more.

I really don’t think I’m in as rough shape as some people think. In fact, I think I’m in BETTER shape than most professed Christians. If God hates luke-warm Christians like he says in his word – that they be either hot or cold. Basically pick a side! – Then I am better off and here’s why. They have a manifested crutch that they some how think is fire insurance to get into heaven but they don’t know God, they don’t pay prices or get uncomfortable for God, and I don’t believe they are included on that NARROW narrow path. It is far more a justice to God to just be honest and say it like it is rather than pay your minimal dues so no one approaches you about. It’s better because then at least you recognize and are honest about who you are so you can address making change easier if that’s what you needed. Second, people like that are staining the name of God every single day and pissing people off for God’s kingdom ten times over than drawing people into His body. Screw that. I firmly believe I am where I am for a reason and a purpose. One way or another I will have closure. Either God will come after me, my choices will finally expose an empty and worthless life, or I will remain well and simply DIFFERENT. God will dictate what will happen.

Its interesting, I was talking to Zane (a leader here) for a few hours yesterday about all this and he pointed out that in fact I was doing all the things I’m doing now when I was a Christian but I’m no longer fighting them now in my freedom. I mean, I am in some respects fighting them but certainly far less. He didn’t have clear answers he wasn’t disappointed or discouraged. He has quite a story and he believes in people and their individual stories, which shape them. I think this is a stage. This is a season. Does it scare me? Yea sure it does sometimes. What if I find what I’m looking for and never have a fallout back to Christ? What if my desires and interests get out of control and actually cause some real damage; real consequences? But I’m trusting God, I guess, that he’ll make sense of this and deal with it accordingly. If that’s what it takes so be it. I’ll tell you right now though the timing isn’t right – no more right than if you were to approach a random person in Los Vegas and say “hey do you know Jesus cause I think you should RIGHT now, cool?” Good luck. They may get to a point where they are fertile and ready. God will provide someone for that in the right timing. I will either come back stronger and different and more convicted than before, or I will lose it entirely. And I’m okay with that. God is big enough for my doubts. God is big enough to get involved when the time is right. If not, then why bother?

I’m excited. I’m excited about lots of things, and I’m happy. You may be inclined to think less of me but I might encourage you not too.

If you have specific questions you can email them to me. Otherwise, consider ourselves informed.

Love you all.

I am Jimmy.

what if we close our eyes? what if we can't wake up?

2008-10-27T20:47:00.000-07:00

this is going to be a rather long one, sorry.

as i mentioned, i was in denver all weekend. my saturday started with stefan waking me up at 9:30 with hot eggo's. at first i was frustrated that anyone was waking me up but then i realized how amazing that deal was so i ate one and went back to sleep. slept til 12.

we left for denver just after lunch, got there at about 3, and went to the Denver zoo. it was pretty good but i think the detroit zoo was better. or perhaps it was just my experience (and particularilly the company) that made it seem better. it was "boo at the zoo" actually that day which basically means there is a bazillion kids in getups coppin some free candy right? so i think i might have had more fun at times just looking at costumes than i did at the animals themselves.

we leave the zoo, tap some quick chow, then head to the soccer game. now, i wasn't even interested in going at first but turns out it was a lot of fun. It was the last game of the season for the Colorado Rapids and the playoffs were on the line. they tied and therefore didn't make playoffs. after the game we went and got milkshakes.

one of the students, Jenny, is from denver so the 5 of us camped at her place saturday night. we watched finding nemo and although i've seen that movie 50 times easy, its probably been close to a year since I've seen it last. and i've only ever seen it with one person so it was a pre big deal. after the movie we were sort of going to bed but decided to go longboarding instead. after longboarding we found this park. i know what you're thinking, "wow jimmy! really? a park? like swings and everything?!?!" shut up. this was no elementary park my friends. i wish i had taken more pictures (i took a few) cause it had some original and DANGerous toys throughout. we got home from that at 4 am. i slept until about 12:45 that morning, just in time to run to a sports bar and catch the second half of the lions game. my fellow fans informed me that we were up 10-6 at half! so we go to boston pizza and watch the lions go 0-6. woot! not...so at this point I'm full, exhausted, i have an eye infection (cause i left my contacts in due to lack of contact case, so i had to take one out that day), and the lions just threw away another game. i was in rough shape, thats whats up. i slept that afternoon.

that night we went to a church called "scum of the earth". it was cool. i'm not gunna go into much detail but i guess it was my best church experience here so far. that says something.

alright, now that I'm through the formal update i want to try and communicate the rest of sunday to you. i haven't spoken very often on how i feel and how I'm doing, i feel like. I do a lot more "updating" on here than i do thinking. the answer to that is i simply don't think too often and if i am caught thinking I'm probably either frustrated or ignorant to my thoughts. i used to get those types of nights back home quite often where i couldn't be sociable and the only remedy seemed to be fresh air or music. i didn't necessarily like those nights but i couldn't help them from coming or going. if nothing else it felt good to have emotion but they were generally draining. on a side note i want to apologize and thank those close to me for tolerating me during those times. i can have dramatically different personalities at times and the grace you all gave me is in plain view now. so sunday night was one of those nights. i was with about 12 other kids from school and it was interesting to see how they dealt with it. actually no it wasn't interesting, they just asked 2 or 3 times each "hey jimmy, are you okay?!" to which i quickly and perkily responded "yeah dude!" the two people who saw me in that state most back home - jon and jen - learned to embrace silence and thought unless i was inclined to engage. it was a long drive home, i literally didn't say a word while i listened to my ipod. God was up to something and whenever he's up to something it seems like its in music, for me. i don't know whether i like the emotion or not.

we finally got home and i was not in any way ready for bed or for people. so even though it was after curfew i went into the main building to play guitar. i was playing for close to an hour before one of the leaders came downstairs. normally this would mean a sure "check" (just assume checks are bad...and he didn't give me one) but he is my covenant leader and we have a pretty unique comfort in the we talk and are open with one another. rather than first asking me why i was still up and not in my dorm he simply asked if i was ok to which i responded, "i can't count how often i've been asked that tonite and simply replied through my teeth that i was. i'm not okay Murdoch" (yes, his name is murdoch). he told me he had been upstairs listening to me play worship for almost 20 minutes before he came down. we talked about things for a while and it was really suiting for me to get some of my thoughts off my mind but...i am so cold and hard that even in that vulnerable state i can't even tell yet whether i made a notable step. i wish i would have written my thoughts that night because its difficult to reflect accurately on them now.

i'm still consumed with doubts and fears and pride. i doubt me. i guess if i'm honest i doubt God, that he'll meet me halfway because i feel like he left me hanging in the past. so i have barriers. i'm too weak. i feel like its a weak that extends past typical christian weakness because i see peers and family and friends wrestle through similar or worse things than me and come out breathing, maybe even striving. there is this really neat illustration that paints a great picture about how i feel:

if you put a predatory fish in with a bait fish surely its gunna eat it. obvious answer. however if you place a glass sheet across the tank between the two fish something interesting happens...the predatory fish will slam into the glass for some time without showing significant signs of slowing down but as time goes on it will approach slower and more cautiously until finally it won't attack or pursue the bait at all. if you were to at this point remove the glass that bait could swim circles around the other fish and remain untouched because the predator has been conditioned to know it can't have it. this happened both in my faith first, and then in my emotion/love second. i could expand further on how this relates to me personally but I'm going to assume you'll make the connections. i simply grew so tired of saying the same things to the same people all the time about how i was no where near where i desired to be and i could not get any closer no matter the measure i took. my struggles and vices remained unchanged despite my efforts. my weaknesses and failures continued to define me and i started to grab hold of a lot of lies. i think the following thought sums it up well...if i was approaching my walk with Christ in a healthy manner, than he was not enough to sustain me. i was depressed and exhausted. if i was mixed up and confused and mis-focused than i don't know what the hell else i was supposed to do. in my heart of hearts i was paying prices and doing everything i felt i could to grow. so if i was somehow in the wrong then i don't know what being a christian looks like. someone here said today in their faith story that they finally determined that God was not going to take the first step; he will not make us love him. what happened to the lost sheep parable? if God values me like he says he does will he not drop what he's doing and go to whatever length to find and restore me back to his body? i dare not hope, but i'd like that to be true.

i'd also like to take a second to encourage those involved in the church back home. please, please do not take for granted the talent and experience we have within our music ministry. though my joy and thankfulness for involvement outweighed the times i took it for granted i know now how much more significant it was. i miss you all and hope that you are all still pushing hard and are thankful for the gifts and confidence God has blessed that team with. and on a broader scale i'm going to encourage you that if you know God don't take THAT for granted because the second you do, you may become something entirely different. it may cost you immensely in the qualities you misplace. if you want to talk to me about that personally, i know too well. there is nothing that excites me more here at school than kids who are fleeing bondage and are serious about finding God in their lives. i know that sounds strange and contrary to my dominant thoughts I've shared, but maybe that's evidence that God has somehow not completely forsaken me.

talk soon.
this is jimmy.

2008-10-24T21:37:00.001-07:00

i keep putting this off. i'm not sure why cause i enjoy writing and i enjoy keepin you guys involved and when i wait this long i forget stuff thats happened since last update.

man, i am listening to Jon Bartel's new stuff right now and honestly i'm somewhat taken of words. dude that mix is nuts. and i have never heard that first song on your myspace..I'm real excited to pick up the full length. and I'm glad to hear you're doin so well (from your blogs).

so a common theme around here is people doing bold and different things. for example, there is a girl sitting beside me getting getting dreads as we speak. another example is that about 4 dudes pierced their ears this past week including me. I'm gunna stretch em a bit. not a lot but just enough for some small black plugs. don't worry they'll heal when i decide to take em out. i also was the proud owner of a BOLD mustache for a few days this week. there is proof on myspace for those who haven't seen these things yet. the mustache is gone now and monday marks a week where I'm gunna stretch my ears.

ok brace yourselves...Oct 21st Jimmy Whitfierce went snowboarding - the first ride of the year. let me elaborate. it was supposed to be a work day for me but i caught wind of a few guys planning a trip to strap up, so i paid someone 5$ to take my shift. so we leave at lunch for St. Mary's glacier (11,000ft elavation approx.) which has snow/ice year round. it was a mile hike up and a mile back while carrying our boards, shovels, and a rail. so we get there and its about 88% ice (much of which was spikes or rocks) with the odd patch of powder. we set up a booter but couldn't get it high enough to reach the rail so we just hit the jump some. the conditions were NASTY with no run up and no landing basically. i caught one pretty good backside grab but couldn't stop due to ice so i pitched up hard on a heap of rocks. surprisingly my body wasn't maimed too bad despite the shock although i did jam up my wrist pretty bad - the same wrist i've irritated for the 3rd time now. i posted a pic on facebook to show the bruising but you can't see it too well. its affecting my work outs but its getting better. also, there was these waves of blizzards where we couldn't see each other 5 feet away, then a few minutes later it would stop and we'd work or ride before the next wave came. we're glad we went but we wouldn't do it again. it is pretty well freezing here all day now so snow is reality now. the mountain opens in like a week and a half i think.

yesterday we went to a place nearby called "younglife". i don't know much about it except that its the biggest camp/retreat place I've ever seen. it has like a 30 man hot tub. so anyways we went there and did their high ropes course. pretty neat experience. i posted a picture or two and also have a video goin down the zipline.

i finally saw 21 the movie. man i definitly enjoyed that WAY too much. basically everything in that movie appeals to me 100 fold.

the lions are still winless and i'm losing hope. i mean, i'm in this for the long haul, i'm not looking for an easy out but man...its draining. redskins this week. i'm gunna try to find the game on someplace though i suspect its in vain to hope.

tomorrow i am going into denver with a carload of people. we're going to the zoo during the day i think and then going to a denver soccer game at night. we're then gunna stay at a students house who lives in denver so that we can hang out on sunday in denver and then go to an evening church service to a place called "scum of the earth". its a pretty non-legalistic church. apperently the pastor swore like 20 times during his sermon last week. should be interesting. the people who have been said it was just amazing.

k also i should just throw in...for those of you who are into hip hop/rap (which I'm guessing might amount to 1 or 2 people) go to www.myspace.com/116clique it is the most legit and amazing christian rap I've ever heard. trust me.

i think thats it.

bye bye.

2008-10-17T20:11:00.000-07:00

I’m back! And man is it nice.

turned out to be a pretty long and interesting week. not sure how my thoughts will decode into words depending on my mood. There were definitely positive things but it wasn’t easy or glamorous most of the time.

so we leave last week on Thursday morning – three 15 passenger vans strong – for Celina Oklahoma. Took us something like 12 hours to get there but we kept busy. In fact, I might say it was a party all the way there. We were always playing games or wrestling or something or other. We played this one game where someone started this simple clap pattern and everyone just built on it with claps or beats. It actually turned out sooo good. So we get to the church we’re staying for the night and there is this sweet youth room with music videos playing, two pool tables, foosball, music equipment, and way too much candy and pop. We stayed up late, walked around town, played some poker – it was all round a good night. We leave the following morning at 6 am or something and finally arrive in Beaumont Texas at about 11 or 12.

just in case any of you are lost, we went down to texas to help clean up the disaster from hurricane Ike instead of going on our scheduled week long camp trip to Moab Utah. So basically the 35 of us got assigned to 3 or 4 separate teams each day, then got assigned to a house, then went and cleaned out the house as well as gutting it down to its joints. Cabinets, appliances, toilets, carpets, drywall, everything. Our first house was actually great. We didn’t know it at the time but in hindsight, it was our easiest one. We saw a bunch of gecko’s, tree frogs, cockroaches, and a couple snakes as we were doin demolition. I’m not gunna go into more detail about the houses specifically but I will say that I smelt things I had never smelt before and touched things that were unspeakably disgusting. Imagine several feet of water sitting for weeks and weeks (5 weeks since the hurricane) and just doin havoc to all their stuff. It was humid, maybe worse than we get at home, so we were literally sopping wet all the time and the smells, again (even with masks on) were enough to make me light headed sometimes. I think a lot of us expected worse though. We saw pictures and probably imagined homes that were in splinters or crumbled over and super dramatic stuff like that but really what it looked like was simply every single home was standing but had a 5-10 foot pile of garbage in front of their house. Literally everything had to be thrown out. So it was interesting to understand the perspective finally that for us it almost seemed a little anticlimactic at first cause all the houses were still there, and basically It was just a terrible flood, but when you think about it they all have to completely start over. Its hard to imagine that at all. And its sobering too to understand how materialistic and selfish I am. I get reminded of that daily but I mean, this was bad.

so we stayed at another church while in texas the whole time. They treated us well. We slept on cots (which weren’t so pleasant) but at least we had hot showers. Went to their service on Sunday – ew. We also went a couple times out to this authentic Mexican restaurant that was within walking distance. I’ll get pics up of a bunch of this stuff up sooner or later. another crazy thing about this trip was that whenever we weren’t at church (like were on the jobsite) we always had to eat what were called MRE’s, unless we got lucky and the Red Cross truck came around with warm meals. So basically an MRE stands for Meals Ready to Eat. Its literally what the army eats. So say you get beef stew it’ll come with a pack of beef stew, some crackers n cheese sauce, a cookie, raisons, and maybe one other gross thing. Then you put the hot part of the meal in a special pouch with salt water and it cooks – pretty wild. They are all gross. They don’t taste like much its more just substance. And they have like 1500 caleries, 180 carbs, and whatever else excessive amounts of energy that is impossible to use up. That whole thing was an interesting experience in itself.

also, on Sunday we had the day off after church so Pete organized a little canoe trip. It was in a river that wasn’t too big, and it had pretty sweet sand beaches along side it some places that we stopped and played on for breaks. The one main stop we had we played a bunch of football and Frisbee at first but the things got more aggressive. Me and Jamie (the guy I gave the concussion too and who used to be like a national champ wrestler) went up against a bunch of people in chicken fights…we went undefeated. Must be all the workin out I’ve been doin. After that we played a HUGE game of british bulldog. Also incredible. I finished second or better (of about 20) all three games. There were some minor injuries rest assured. K, so we keep canoeing and my canoe partner happens to be Stephan. If you don’t remember he’s my favorite. Check facebook for a reference. Sooo we decided to be pirates for the day right? Great idea! We put bandana’s on our mouths and made a lot of growling noises and then proceeded to steal the life jackets from every canoe that we could. One canoe got sassy with us and stole a couple from OUR huge pile. So Stephan hops from ours onto theirs but as its beginning to capsize he jumps back to ours and we flip too. After we finally recovered one of the leaders told us that if we get stopped or caught without lifejackets in every canoe it’s a 500 hundred dollar fine soooooo basically we played delivery boys the rest of the time catching up and giving people back their life jackets. It was a sweet day.

I’ll skip the rest of the week up until yesterday when we were about to leave. Nate, one of the dudes here was out at 6am helping load up the trailer and apparently got maimed by some fire ants…interesting and unfortunate. Well, turns out it was far more unfortunate because he found out he was allergic to them. He started rashing and swelling up all over his body so they eventually sent him to the hospital. The other two vans left back to that church in Oklahoma but our van of about 10 dudes stayed back until 3 o clock to wait for nate. Since it was a bit of a weird situation and we wouldn’t have arrived in Oklahoma until 5 in the morning we decided to crash at Eric’s house (another student) who lives in texas. This entire thing turned out to be a MASSIVE blessing in disguise. We had a BBQ, went swimming and hot tubbing, played a lot of video games, played some poker, and camped out on computers until 4 in the morning when we departed. So we had a friggin great night to wind down, and then we slept from like 5 til 2 in the afternoon. And now I feel fantastic and we’re back home in Colorado. We took a shorter way home and got home before the other group, hehe.

so that leads us up until right now! We’ve been doin some intense ab sessions and they keep getting more intense. We’re lookin into weights and splittin some protein products even. Tres bien. Now, we have the weekend off and most of Monday.

please lions please. this is the weekend.

2008-10-08T15:29:00.000-07:00

so a couple days ago we acquired a mascot. one of our dudes went to take a shower and found a mouse in our washroom. so we've got like 5 dudes jumping around screaming about having a pet, so we throw on some gloves and cornered him into a trash can. it was awesome. his name was Moses the mouse. unfortunately it only lasted a day. i wanted to feed him and keep him around but someone let him go.

i just got back from Dan's place (my principle). we had an inCREDible coffee (fresh ground beans, pressed and everything.) and just talked all afternoon. that dude is amazing. i love his family so much. and as unstable as i am i can be honest with him and wrestle through things without feeling threatened and, at the same time i have enough experience and understanding to talk intelligently about issues and christian stuff.

so yesterday i went long boarding again. i was using a dudes long board was squeaking a bit but i decided it would be fine. so we start going down this trail and its not feeling real good but i had headphones in and couldn't hear. so i keep rippin and then....the WHEEL falls off! bloooddyyy. i bail, pick up the board, and then walk over to the highway to try and hitchhike down. no one picked me up.

last night we played football out on the to-be hockey rink. its basically just a nice wide open grass area that is cut short and nice. so its like 25 degrees out and we're playin football. it was fun except i took a pretty bad shot to the head, and thigh, and wrist. i'm feeling better today though.

ok so in big news, we were supposed to leave for MOAB Utah this week for a big ol camp/backpack trip. it was gunna be campin, hikin, bikin, climbin, etc. they do it every year. but a couple weeks ago an opportunity came up in Texas to serve and help clean up the mess from hurricane Ike that apparently ripped through there. so we were wrestling with what to do, and last night concluded that we were goin to texas. some local tiny churches gave us 2,000$ of gas money, and a third van to get down with. its a 20 hour drive and we're not aloud ipods. they want us to develope community on this trip and spend a lot of time in solitude. it's gunna be rough especially for me. so anyways, I'll be back in a week. we leave tomorrow.

we were doin 2-a-days for about the past week with regard to ab workouts but its slowed down a bit. we get up at 7, workout, go in the hot tub at 7:30, then give ourselves ten minutes to get ready for breakfast at 8. I've also been running about 3-4 times a week. i do about 4 kms which i'm really pleased with at this altitude. progress feels slow, its hard to tell. but we'll see.

had my first phone call the other night. it was with Jen and it was awesome. if anyone really really wants to talk to me, send me an email and we can maybe arrange for it.

thanks for stoppin in.

Jimmmmi

2008-10-04T22:01:00.000-07:00

I hate camping.

we went on a camping trip this weekend and I mmeaaannn parts of it were ok but for the most part I’m not a fan of camping. Keep in mind the last time I went camping we had a 15” TV, xbox 360, original Nintendo, and a fridge all inside of our tent. So this was somewhat of a downgrade.

so we get there Thursday night and have dinner and then some devo/worship after that around a fire. By the time that was done we were wondering what we were gunna do besides throw a football or explore (plus it was real dark by now) so somehow this crazy fire game evolved. A couple dudes started throwing hot ashes from the firepit up into the air and other dudes started hitting them in mid air too. So basically it was fire volleyball, or perhaps hacky sack. I think I named it ashball. It was super intense. One got caught in a guys hood once and another time it got stuck in a guys bandana tied around his neck. I have some sweet photo’s of it that I will post.

Saturday was cave day. Three separate groups went into this cave up in the mountain. The exploring lasted 3 hours in each case. I was a bit nervous at first but it turned out to be awweeesssome. Everything was wet and thus very slippery and there was no flatground; everything was an obstacle. Many of these obstacles were very very small holes or cracks we had to squeeze through also. One dude at our school is legally blind so it was pretty scary when we do anything with him. He can see a little but he can’t drive. He’s 23 and I think he’s albino (from what I’m told). Oh and he’s from Alberta. On a side note, the other three Canadians here are some of the three weirdest people here. That sounds bad I know, but its sort of a sad standard for peoples stereotypes toward Canada. Anyways, so this dude has to make a 3 or 4 foot jump and misses. He lands on his chest and slides into a crevice. I wasn’t there but I heard the story. It sounded bad, and the wounds looked real bad. Aside from that nothing to serious. I have a completely blue shin and some other bruises. Oh, and one dude was exploring and got the back of his knee ripped up on a rusty piece of barbed wire so he had to go get a tetnus shot. Something ALWAYS happens here like that.

so caving was awesome. I’ll post some pics of that too. The rest of the weekend was fine. I just hate cleaning up dirty cloths and cleaning up and feeling super greasy and stinky and stuff. Speaking of stinky there was a sulphur river next to our camp that was like 50 degrees so a couple dudes took baths in there. Apparently sulphur is good for your skin?

so I’m really anticipating the Lions game tomorrow. I forgot to tell you guys too that we’re about 8 fans strong here now too. It started when I found 2 lions fans about 4 days ago then, the four of us just started asking people if they wanted to be a lions fan and they were down. So 6 or 7 of us are going to this pub in town that is showing the game. I NEED them to come through this week.

I listened to the Hillsongs album entitled “this is our God” 3 times through this weekend. Its outstanding. I mean, its predictably hillsongs just coming through with another bombshell. As good as it is though I could hardly even stand it. It reminded me of too many things. It reminded me of “home”, reminded me of certain people, reminded me of quiet car rides, reminded me of worship and bass, reminded me of emotion…it was sort of strange to deal with. It was the most spiritual experience I’ve had since I’ve been here. If I could possibly somehow find God I feel like my best chances are in music. There are too many lies that slow me down though, too many Christ-follower stories that discourage me when they’ve lacked any change, and knowing too well my weaknesses and where the treasure of my heart is. I realized something today. I’ve said this before but I hate my bodytype more than anything. I hate feeling sort of big and I’d kill to be cut, but even though I am running and trying to takes steps I still lack the discipline to get the job done well. So if I struggle this much in changing something I’m VERY passionate about, how do I suppose I am going to change a lifestyle that I don’t hate; sin that I don’t detest.

there is no stability in my thought life but again, all I can say is we’ll see.

check out the new pics. And cheer hard for the lions tomorrow.

bye friends.

Jimmy.

p.s. mom the new sleeping bag was a DREAM. It was like 15 farentheit at night and I was hot in my bundies. Mummy sleeping bags are a miracle. Also, the fact that I’ve managed to spend as much money as I have in one month is a also a miracle. Or a nightmare.

2008-10-01T20:32:00.000-07:00

if you are not into football, go ahead and skip to the next paragraph. a pretty disappointing start from the Lions of course, going 0-3. i feel like this week is going to be one of the most important games of their season. They just came off their bye week so they had time to rest a bit, and re-evaluate whats been going wrong. primarilly its the first half thats diggin their weekly grave. points in first half against detroit were 0-21, 0-21, and 3-21 i think. no wonder. they only have 3 sacks, so pressure on Orton is gunna be something to watch and hope for this week, and detroit needs to create some turnovers too since they've struggled with that. another key element is that there is still lots of time left (13 games) and no one in the division is really pulling away yet. this week is against the bears (a division rival) so it is their chance to get some momentum going here, and feed that hunger they've aquired for some W's. another major part of this week is that it is going to be my first week of actually getting to WATCH the game. Fox doesn't play lions games up here but i went and did some homework in town today and found a place that has NFL ticket, so they are going to show it there.

there is still a lot of exciting things going on here nearly everyday. i guess its just slightly less exciting or notable than the first couple weeks, but i will continue to update of course. my knee and leg are still messed up. i keep re-straining my knee, and i went on a 3 mile run the other day that ruined my calves. now see, that is a problem because tomorrow morning we leave for the men's retreat weekend to some place where we will be hiking and camping and doin a bunch of stuff in a cave or something...i dunno details. its gunna be wild though. I'll make sure to get some pics m k?

the other night i connected with a couple guys on a different level than we've experienced thus far. there is a lot of struggle and conflict in each of our faiths (mine most, by far) but we all want to give this an honest chance and start paying some prices for Christ's sake. after this retreat we are meeting every night to work through romans, and just talk and pray and stuff. we found a sweet secret place in the woods to make fires for these meetings. so that is hopeful. i guess. we'll see.

i'll get back to you guys on sunday night probably ok? i feel like i'm leaving out a lot of details or stories. must mean i need to update more often so i remember stuff.

have a great weekend.

2008-09-26T21:00:00.000-07:00

Alright, time to update again. I set the tempo a little high on the blog-rate I think. Its been harder to find time and computers (and energy) to sit down, but I’ll try to do it every 2 or 3 days still. Also, for those of you who haven’t looked yet, I add new photos from here at school usually at least once a week.

so this past Monday was kind of an off day, and we went and played a huge game of ultimate Frisbee. I’m not that big on ultimate Frisbee but boy do I like to yell, so that’s basically what I contributed to my team. I also pulled like both my leg muscles so I could hardly run. During the course of the game I got shouldered in the mouth, and then elbowed again in the throat. It was terrible. In fact It was hard to swallow for the rest of the day. That’s just the way things roll around here. If things are normal, you’re hurting and you don’t get time to recover.

Tuesday I was a lumberjack all afternoon. It was pretty sweet wielding a chainsaw and lifting 300 lb logs. Manliest of man duties I reckon. We had classes all this week by a guest speaker on the book of John. I can’t stand class.

we went long boarding again on a crazy hill this week and got clocked at 37 mph. two guys spilled and got wrecked up. Soo much road rash. Probably 40% of our male population is notably maimed from crashes. Yesterday I was at the skatepark and bruised my wrist, and mildly hyper-extended my right knee. I must have just really stretched some stuff in there or something cause I can’t straighten it. So that sucks.

today we went climbing at some cliffs, I’ll post some pics. It was hard with my body so beat up but it was fun.

remember me complaining about not having headphones? Well I got some. They are called “Skull Candy” and retail at 85$, but I got em for 35$ brand new after shipping. I can’t speak highly enough about these headphones. They are just earbuds (which I normally don’t support) but they puuummmpp. It feels like there is a system in your ears, and it isn’t ridiculous like bass for the sake of bass, it’s an ideal mix. So good. And I found my headlamp that was missing.

the workout thing isn’t going so well. We do climbing and then abs pretty often, a few of us, but I can’t run because of my bum knee. And I was eating soooo much so now I’m starting to slow down. I’m so sick of a mediocre and slightly overweight body type. I hate not knowing if I’m making progress (without a scale), but it sure doesn’t feel like it.

oh, I’m also gunna post some pics of the fox. He ate out of our hand this week. we were feeding him honeycomb.

I’m going to Denver tomorrow to hang out with some ravencrest people (that is the other torchbearer bible college in Colorado). Then at night we’re doing sumo wrestling back at the lodge. I guess they are renting those suites. Sunday is another event thingy in Denver. Too lazy to describe it. Maybe I’ll update about it if its exciting.

I went out for coffee with my principle the other day for almost 3 hours. I was completely honest with him about my thoughts and the way I feel. I can’t believe how he treated it. As well as he could of for sure. He was so supportive and even though he was concerned he wasn’t at all worried or controlling about it. That was just incredible. But since then I still waiver even a couple times a day about how I feel toward my spiritual future. I’m still virtually flat-lined, but there has been at least trace amounts of progress. I find its still for the wrong reasons. I don’t want it for me, but I consider having it for others. Only time will tell.

catch up soon again my friends.

jimmy.

2008-09-21T11:30:00.001-07:00

yesterday i did another load of laundry. wierd huh? i also went and purchased my boarding pass for the year. it was 400$ and i have access to three different mountains. it jumps to over a thousand after thanksgiving or something.

so after we got back from town doing that there was a buzz back at school about going to a colorado rockies game (baseball). i reluctantly decided it was a good idea. so we drive to denver, buy 10$ tickets and get it done. someone gave me an 18$ wheelchair space ticket for free outside i tried to scalp...no dice.
the game was pretty good but i mean, i didn't know a single player. a couple of other interesting things happened though. one of the guys with us from school has a girlfriend who goes to ravencrest (which is the other torchbearer school in colorado about an hour away), and said that there was a big group of them here at the game. so we go over and meet them, then ended up hangin out there all game. the seats were better and the people were cool. it started raining at one point for about an inning but then finally let up. it was a close game until arizona hit a two run homer in the 8th. again, i didn't care so much for the game as i did the experience. i'll post some pictures soon.

so...the game itself was fun but not overly eventful. one very strange thing happened though that I'm gunna tell you about now. me, randall, and two girls from ravencrest went to go find dip n dots but on the way back to our seats i pulled ahead of them cause i was weaving in and out of the crowds or whatever. so I'm about to get on the stairs back to our section and i hear randall yelling "jimmy!" behind me, and i hear running. so i stop and this girl grabs my shoulder - sort of winded, probably from running in heels - and the first thing she says to me is "how tall are you?"..."6'1""..."how old are you"..."21"...so i mean at this point I'm obviously confused and somewhat humoured, i thought maybe she was about to ask me out or something. i should stop and say that this girl resembled a barbie for lack of better description; very model-esque and fashionable. she can tell i'm confused so she starts to describe to me and my friends that she is a talent scout for a model agency. i laugh and look at randall and literally say, "you gotta be kidding. am i supposed to take this seriously?" it was such a wierd moment. then she describes more and more what she does and who they are. then she asks if she can give me a business card and he contact info and if she can have mine. my friends pressured me into it, so i go over to her seat (which is in a crazy box-seat) and she pulls out this big bag - not a purse, filled with books and binders and paper and that type of thing. it was pretty legit. if you wanna check it out the site is www.accessworldtalent.com. anyways, just thought i'd tell you...sort of funny.

we road in the back of a truck from denver back to fraser (hour and a half) cuddled up and sleeping.

this morning i did worship at a local baptist church. again, i have nothing to say over this public blog. if you wanna ask me about it i'll be honest. had taco bell after for breakfast. this afternoon i get to watch the Lions game at my principles house which is faaannntaastic. then i may watch green bay and hope they lose to dallas.

oh, and an update on that guy who got injured? it turned out to be the most severe concussion you can get, but that is actually good news. he's back at school and in good shape. we had to wake him up every 4 hours for two nights but he's gunna be fine.

i have so much reading to do for school, its nuts.

jimmy.

2008-09-18T13:27:00.000-07:00

today started rather normally. didn't shower, ate breakfast, had two classes, etc. then something abnormal happened. we had a couple hour stretch that happens once a week called "men's group" or men's class. the girls have a separate one too. we went to the local rec facility with soccer and baseball fields and such - very nice and well kept and big. so we do a couple group activities that of course are packed with parables and lessons...everything was goin swell and enjoyably.

then after that we had about an hour to play football on one of these big fields. this is where it gets interesting. there was 20 of 22 guys who wanted to play and voted that we play tackle football. there were some restrictions like no cut blocking, or full on shoulder down spear tackles but it was legit, trust me. so 10 dudes per side, my team is skins. i need you to imagine the intensity of 20 dudes filled with adrenaline about to get on the most masculine of deeds.

i was playing on the line for defense, and then i was a tight end for offense. so one play while on offense i broke loose on a pass route and caught a deflected pass to me. i turn upfield and got tackled shortly after by two guys - one on each side. i was sort of running through the tackles but then one guy got down right in the middle and caught my legs and took me down. so the dude that took me down low is pretty short but he's like a pitbull. he wrestled for many years, broke his back about 4 times (and has tons of plates and stuff in it), has had 8 concussions, and is an all-round maniac. pays no attention to pain or risk at all. just one of those guys.

as he was taking me down, i ran through the hit initially and plowed my knee through the side of his face/head...like REAL hard. i immediately ran back after the play to him to check on him even though he bounced right up to his feet. he looked and sounded slightly shaken but was acting fine. i must have asked him 3 times during the game. he didn't even slow down, he ran hard, broke tackles, blocked back-field, you name it. on a side note, some dude got elbowed in the face too, which led to much blood.

so football ends, and we head back for lunch. as we're waiting i notice this guy (Jamie Simpson is his name, believe it or not) standing over on his own, kind of spaced out leaning on a chair. i go over and ask him again, like "dude you straight? does it feel like you got punched super hard with a stiff jaw and stuff? cause you look real spaced out". he looks at me and says no dude i got it on lock. so i'm like, aight and i turn (still standing beside him). 10 seconds later he collapses into me...blacks out. even though i was surprised cause i wasn't facing him, i was able to hold him up and lift him to a couch. long story short i missed lunch cause i was sitting with him and some leaders for about an hour while an ambulance came and worked on em. he's now gone to denver to get a cat scan. those of you who can spare a minute, he needs prayer. its likely a concussion, but given the symptoms they are taking every precaution.

its only 3 o clock right now. who knows what else might happen today. for now i'm goin to play disc golf and then maybe climb. tonite we have our first worship practice. i dunno, we'll see how that goes.

jimmy

2008-09-17T21:38:00.000-07:00

i am updating an awful lot, but there is so much going on that its only appropriate.

this morning i woke slowly to someone yelling "get up! everyone pack up your hike gear we're leaving in 15 minutes!". that was at 2:45am. at first i was running off adrenaline, so i felt pretty good but then during the one hour drive to the mountain i started feeling so sick and exhausted. so we start climbing this mountain. it was called mount Ida, it took us about 5 hours, and the summit had an altitude of 12,800 ft which is more than 2 miles above sea level. it was difficult to breath well, and the hike was honestly one of the most intense things i've ever had to do in my life. extremely challenging. we had lunch at the summit and hung out. like me and another guy built a rock fort for instance. among other awesome things. 3 quarters of the hike was above treeline. so basically, trees can't survive at that altitude and there was quite a bit of snow. it was 4.5 miles up the mountain and 4.5 back. we climbed about 3,000 ft. (from 9,000 to almost 13,000).

so that was today. very very interesting. i guess I'm glad we did it but i wouldn't want to do it again. the view was astounding. i'll get pictures up someday.

i've seen about 6 foxes. we keep conjuring a way to catch one. apperently some of the leaders have pet them and played fetch before. and two of the students saw a very very large black bear yesterday.

night.

jimmy.

2008-09-16T20:13:00.000-07:00

so i did the bike jump today into the pond. the other day i just watched and said maybe i would, but then the sun went down and i ducked out. so anyway, today i did it and i meeaaaannn...it was a lot of fun, but the water is about 54 degrees. to the point that you can't even yell when you hit the water because of the shock and perhaps compression of your lungs. good experience.

i told you we were going biking yesterday. it was definitely an experience. first of all the air is a LOT thinner at 9000 ft. which doesn't help at all when you're basically biking up a mountain. there was some major body burnage goin on but all in all it was a still a good experience.

today we started classes. its gunna be interesting. i'm sincerely excited about furthering knowledge on this stuff - not for the reasons you might think, but the point is i'm ready and willing to soak it up.

i actually did laundry today. strange huh? not even a week in and i did a load. i also skated for about an hour at the skatepark while the stuff dried. speaking of skating, i have 4 or 5 notable scabs on my body as well as several bruises already and i love it. its just liberating to know i'm being active and doing things where i commonly get maimed.

Sometimes this community feels a lot like highschool. just socially. the way people interact is interesting to watch and less interesting to engage. i like the one on one thing, or if someone approaches me i'm glad to talk or be at least somewhat outgoing, but there is already more than enough drama. I think it inclines me to withdraw that much more.

there aren't enough guitars here. i wish so bad that i had my own. some people have heard me playing though and i guess i'm quite the buzz around here. oh, and my brand new headphones that pump bass just stopped working. so those are toast, and my standard ipod headphones have been blown for months. its terrible.

i don't take seeing mountains everyday for granted yet at all. i think i even give the spotless and untouched skies due credit too.

jim.

2008-09-14T13:24:00.001-07:00

things are starting to settle down around here. its been a bit less than a week, so everyone is very very comfortable around one another already.

we went to church this morning. i don't have many positive things to note about it. everyone is actually out playing ultimate frisbee right now, but i'm catchin up on a few other things around here. I'm leading worship tomorrow in our family group. basically we split into designated groups of about 8-10 students, we go over to a teachers house, have breakfast, do a little worship, and then talk n stuff...nothing heavy. but i'm regretting now saying that i would do worship. to early. among other things. then later tomorrow we're going to the YMCA bike trails or something? i'm not a biker, i dunno...hope its sweet. we had a volleyball tournament yesterday too, not sure if i mentioned that.

its amazing. this early and i already see the old (maybe true me) resurfacing. rather than flock to my community and some of the more socially attractive people, i revert elsewhere on my own. i guess its withdrawing and i'm not sure why. it may just be in my nature, it may be a number of other things. i wish i weren't that way though. i'm still avoiding my thoughts and i'm still rather cold in general. i can put on a good front if and when i want to be fun and stupid and such with people, but my most natural tendancy at least right now isn't terribly social. and i'm a pansy. i keep wimpin out of activities. and i'm whiner - something i'm aware of and want to get control of this year. and i know its only been a week but i haven't gone running or done one push up or anything...and i talked a big game about gettin in shape. i'll keep you posted.

some dude right in front of me is trying to stretch his ears, so he's whining quite a bit. i'm gunna try to find a ride to safeway to grab some munchies.

be easy.

Jimmy.

Welcome

2008-09-13T21:38:00.001-07:00

this is where I'm going to relay my thoughts from now on. if you intend or would like to respond, you can do so to my email.

i'm here as some of you have already heard, and everything is fantastic. We've done stupid proportions of longboarding already. Also, today we jumped a bike into a pond off a large ramp. it was neat. the food is incredible. we play quite a bit of ping pong, and i also went to a skatepark in town today. some of you may be excited to know that there is a taco bell 5 minutes from the school. someone is bringing me back a gordita combo right now. I'm eating twice the portions and far more gourmet foods then at home (no diss to mom or dad...i ate simple at home by choice.) the students are great for the most part. I'm excited about the community. a few people are going to prove to be very very trying, but thats a given. work duty kind of worries me too. might get pretty intense. but all in all I'm excited.

There are tons of laptops with wireless internet but I'm not sure how often I'm gunna be able to update, and i can't promise it to be thorough. I'm guessing every few days i might pop on, and i'm sure the detail will depend on the day and the mood.

k i'm out. catch up later.