I'm more or less killing time right now. The 3 plus feet of snow has finally broken into my home through the solar tube in the kitchen. I'm looking at the hole right now (I mean it's covered in blankets and cardboard) and thinking about how we're going to pay for that.
I've been sleeping on the couch lately, something I only do when something is bothering me. It's strange I guess. I think I was on there for like 3 weeks or something, but last night I slept in my room. It was a good, lazy sleep. I still don't know what's been eating at me (Gilbert Grape, blah blah blah).
I know that in a few minutes Erik and I will be going have lunch with our friend Chase. Chase travels around the country and follows Jesus in awesome communes. We are going to Big Foot BBQ but since Erik and I are still on this vegetarian-better than you-I don't kill things-meat is murder kick we will be getting some stupid tofu knock-off.
I'm working on praying more, consistently and like it matters. Its still been a work in progress loving my roommates. Loving the people I see every day. In every failure I am learning how crazy it is that Jesus has, does and will love us this passionately.
I have an awesome story about Haiti and college kids, but I'll talk about that in the next post.
I hope that everyone is having wonderful day,
geoff
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Lists
I don't really feel like leaving my couch lately. I've been watching lots and lots of TV, feeling gross, and only seeing the light of day to go to the gym or work. Sometimes I get food. There's something nice in those weird moments (days, weeks, months) where we don't know what we're doing.
These are the things I like right now:
1."How I Met Your Mother" Seasons 1-3
2. The more important dialogues I've been having with my roommates
3. Scrambled Eggs with cheese mixed in
4. Apple Cinnamon Cheerios
5. The notes I'm taking for some sort of screenplay I'm fantasizing about
6. Listening to both of A.A. Bondy's albums, they are great.
These things are less than ideal
1. It's cold
2. There aren't that many people in Flagstaff right now
3. Parts of me misses living in an urban center....which is weird
Short sweet, just a bunch of lists
-Geoff
These are the things I like right now:
1."How I Met Your Mother" Seasons 1-3
2. The more important dialogues I've been having with my roommates
3. Scrambled Eggs with cheese mixed in
4. Apple Cinnamon Cheerios
5. The notes I'm taking for some sort of screenplay I'm fantasizing about
6. Listening to both of A.A. Bondy's albums, they are great.
These things are less than ideal
1. It's cold
2. There aren't that many people in Flagstaff right now
3. Parts of me misses living in an urban center....which is weird
Short sweet, just a bunch of lists
-Geoff
Friday, January 1, 2010
This Is Not a Post Concerning the New Year
I guess I just wanted to post something concerning writing. Like real writing, not this. I'm in a graduate class for poetry this semester, and I've been told part of the focus is publishing. So that's cool. I don't have an grand illusions of getting anything put in a magazine, at this point I'm trying not to think about writing in that way. The stupid day dream I use to have where I was an influential writer with a nice scarf and valid opinions is the thing I'm trying to rid myself of.....I think I write better when that's not what I'm thinking about. Anyways I've been working on something new poems over the last few days. I'm mostly just building from notes I took last semester, anyways I figured I'd give the people that read this a preview.
Marriage at Sea Level & the End of the World
The gossip of old lades moves through our homes
and lets us know that every choice we've made has been wrong,
and no matter who we love she'll always be two songs
with the same words and different music to make us burn
like silly 2 dollar candles bought from a street vendor
(pouring out cinnamon or vanilla till there's nothing else in the room).
When my grandfather died his ashes married Horse Mtn
& a flask of whiskey while my grandmother married her Garden
and now everything blooms when the spring melts the fog away.
Every morning after Thanksgiving my father's friend
marries the same waitress at Hanson's truck stop,
5 am over eggs & toast.
The groaning of the Pacific sounds like a wounded animal
in the pastures behind Three Corners Market
where the salt marries rusted out tractors and homes.
The gas station attendant in Ludlow who hoses the
concrete at night wants to get married while I'm trying to
show you a constellation that looks like marriage at sea level & the End of the World. Because
now the world is ending and when we wake up
we won't know the faces of the people around us.
I never trust anyone as much as strangers and few people
can sing in my heart like the nameless.
The longer I go into the night the less I want to talk to you
or anyone who might be real because I never want your
silences to change my landscapes or
rot my hatred into something useful.
We change our bodies everyday to look
like thicker versions of our parents
and take a bow to the people we use to be
(who look back at us like faces against the window of a car
when it's cold and normal saying, "Good Job, We're So Proud!)
as we stand in Levis, hands jammed in our pockets, ashamed.
Every time I see a full moon I want to walk with you in a Eucalyptus
grove till all of our features are worn away and
I find the dark timid feeling of honesty
that swims around in the creek by the path
like the fish trapped in pools
who wait for rain to take them back out to the ocean.
Winter comes and I drive through the desert and up the coast
till the weather feels like home.
You are still at work so I wait.
Sooo yeah, there's that. silly rants and raves.
Hope everyone is doing well,
Geoff
Marriage at Sea Level & the End of the World
The gossip of old lades moves through our homes
and lets us know that every choice we've made has been wrong,
and no matter who we love she'll always be two songs
with the same words and different music to make us burn
like silly 2 dollar candles bought from a street vendor
(pouring out cinnamon or vanilla till there's nothing else in the room).
When my grandfather died his ashes married Horse Mtn
& a flask of whiskey while my grandmother married her Garden
and now everything blooms when the spring melts the fog away.
Every morning after Thanksgiving my father's friend
marries the same waitress at Hanson's truck stop,
5 am over eggs & toast.
The groaning of the Pacific sounds like a wounded animal
in the pastures behind Three Corners Market
where the salt marries rusted out tractors and homes.
The gas station attendant in Ludlow who hoses the
concrete at night wants to get married while I'm trying to
show you a constellation that looks like marriage at sea level & the End of the World. Because
now the world is ending and when we wake up
we won't know the faces of the people around us.
I never trust anyone as much as strangers and few people
can sing in my heart like the nameless.
The longer I go into the night the less I want to talk to you
or anyone who might be real because I never want your
silences to change my landscapes or
rot my hatred into something useful.
We change our bodies everyday to look
like thicker versions of our parents
and take a bow to the people we use to be
(who look back at us like faces against the window of a car
when it's cold and normal saying, "Good Job, We're So Proud!)
as we stand in Levis, hands jammed in our pockets, ashamed.
Every time I see a full moon I want to walk with you in a Eucalyptus
grove till all of our features are worn away and
I find the dark timid feeling of honesty
that swims around in the creek by the path
like the fish trapped in pools
who wait for rain to take them back out to the ocean.
Winter comes and I drive through the desert and up the coast
till the weather feels like home.
You are still at work so I wait.
Sooo yeah, there's that. silly rants and raves.
Hope everyone is doing well,
Geoff
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Home and the Last Few Weeks
When ever I'm home I get this feeling like my life is a familiar song that plays on a trip to the grocery store, the kind of song that everyone likes and is okay with (like American Pie) and the people in the car get to share a few minutes of comfort over something they all held dear in some way or another.
Today I am home, and I get to enjoy comfort and minimal responsibility (sort of) for 10 days. The last few weeks have been wonderfully busy, heartbreaking, and necessary. I won't get apologetic for not posting, because that would be silly, and I doubt anyone would really want that (of course if you do let me know and something can be arranged).
Work at the shelter has been great. I'm learning how easily my heart is broken. I'm also learning just how many different kinds of Little Debbie Snack products there are (don't worry, I've given up on attempting to try them all). I think what keeps my job from slowly dismantling my soul into something unrecognizable is Jesus. It couldn't be anything else. I'm just not that strong (thankfully). This job was slowly killing me until I gave it all up to Him....which is hard.....because I want to save everyone. I've become increasingly aware of this little part of me that wants to be a superhero or Gandhi and save everyone from pain and suffering, all so I can take credit for something that really has nothing to do with me and everything to do with God working through me.
We probably all deal with this, and it's important enough to be one of the first things Jesus is tempted with. There's this warning that we seem to gloss over (or I do at least) when Jesus is in the wilderness and gets tempted with the ability to turn rocks into bread....which the first time I read that I thought "Oh...right, cause he must be hungry".
Well eventually I realized, "Hey, wait, he could turn those rocks into bread and give it to other people!, People who are even starving" and then I felt depressed for a little bit because my initial reaction was inward while Christ's must have been outward. But then I got over that and began looking at the places in my life where I might be tempted to do tricks instead of being faithful. The easy little outs that seem really convenient and harmless. This meandering of thoughts led me to my job....and how I was so stressed at the end of the day because I wasn't loving everyone perfectly.....cause they were still homeless....and had problems.....and I couldn't fix that.
But that tension is unhealthy, wrong, and probably what we as humans will always struggle with. It happens when we trust our own tainted perception of love over something more holy and ultimately true.
So what I'm getting at with all of this, is that I've found this much to be true:It's necessary to give the important things up to God.
We need our hearts to be vulnerable and open to Him before we can live in true freedom and stop worrying about results and our "abilities".
I think we worry, because the world has this stick (probably a standard looking yardstick) that it measures everything by, success, failure, etc. I think we see that, and get discouraged because we don't get that kind of feedback from God, our results aren't held over our heads like in every aspect of our worldly lives. It's not directly about results. Sure change comes from following Christ.... but the first step is obedience....and having faith in God's truth....then the crazy stuff starts happening. Stuff we'd never even imagine was possible.
Certainly this is easy to say, and hopefully I won't be caught going around at party's saying this like it's something I always do....because that would be a lie, and it means I'm trying to impress people with fancy ideas.
It's a Wonderful Life
Whenever it snows, I think of that movie.....that and how much I'm going to hate the snow in 24 hours. It dumped, and I mean dumped, allllll over Flagstaff last week. I got to miss 2 days of finals, which was a fantastic blessing because I was able to relax for the first time in too long. Sometimes I like to think that I'll really enjoy the snow, sit on a warm couch with a Snuggie, and book by some dead guy, hot chocolate (don't like the word cocoa) and perhaps a dog and watch the snow fall by a rather large window. (There may be some subtle music playing in this daydream but I really just can't decide yet...I like the silence sometimes).
Anyways, it's much better than the reality of my out of shape, heavily breathing form shoveling snow and cursing at the snowplow as it dumps huge clumps of snow/ice at the foot of my driveway while I'm falling down on my butt and my neighbors laugh.
Veggie Tales in My Stomach
I have this idea that my roommate Erik and I are going to be vegetarians for six months starting Jan 1 (it's convenient this way....not a resolution). There's no ethical agenda.....I just want to see if I can do it....I'll keep everyone updated on that
The Perspective of Distance and Why I Think It Sucks
Whenever I leave a place I've been for a long time, I always get this wave of insight into all of the things that I didn't like about where I just was and the areas I could have improved in. I absolutely hate this, mostly because I know I'm going to have to remember it all and apply it to future situations. I hate this because it means that I've been apathetic and it's taken sudden, drastic movement to make me aware of this. This is probably just how it's suppose to work....and I'll accept that, I just think it's stupid (mostly when this is how I'm made aware of situations where I may be hurting others, myself, or God)
So this has been a long post, and I think the free time is going to allow me to do this a lot more over the break, I think there are lots of things to write about. Hopefully this all finds you in a place that's good (I'll let you guys figure out what "good" means to you)
-Geoff
Today I am home, and I get to enjoy comfort and minimal responsibility (sort of) for 10 days. The last few weeks have been wonderfully busy, heartbreaking, and necessary. I won't get apologetic for not posting, because that would be silly, and I doubt anyone would really want that (of course if you do let me know and something can be arranged).
Work at the shelter has been great. I'm learning how easily my heart is broken. I'm also learning just how many different kinds of Little Debbie Snack products there are (don't worry, I've given up on attempting to try them all). I think what keeps my job from slowly dismantling my soul into something unrecognizable is Jesus. It couldn't be anything else. I'm just not that strong (thankfully). This job was slowly killing me until I gave it all up to Him....which is hard.....because I want to save everyone. I've become increasingly aware of this little part of me that wants to be a superhero or Gandhi and save everyone from pain and suffering, all so I can take credit for something that really has nothing to do with me and everything to do with God working through me.
We probably all deal with this, and it's important enough to be one of the first things Jesus is tempted with. There's this warning that we seem to gloss over (or I do at least) when Jesus is in the wilderness and gets tempted with the ability to turn rocks into bread....which the first time I read that I thought "Oh...right, cause he must be hungry".
Well eventually I realized, "Hey, wait, he could turn those rocks into bread and give it to other people!, People who are even starving" and then I felt depressed for a little bit because my initial reaction was inward while Christ's must have been outward. But then I got over that and began looking at the places in my life where I might be tempted to do tricks instead of being faithful. The easy little outs that seem really convenient and harmless. This meandering of thoughts led me to my job....and how I was so stressed at the end of the day because I wasn't loving everyone perfectly.....cause they were still homeless....and had problems.....and I couldn't fix that.
But that tension is unhealthy, wrong, and probably what we as humans will always struggle with. It happens when we trust our own tainted perception of love over something more holy and ultimately true.
So what I'm getting at with all of this, is that I've found this much to be true:It's necessary to give the important things up to God.
We need our hearts to be vulnerable and open to Him before we can live in true freedom and stop worrying about results and our "abilities".
I think we worry, because the world has this stick (probably a standard looking yardstick) that it measures everything by, success, failure, etc. I think we see that, and get discouraged because we don't get that kind of feedback from God, our results aren't held over our heads like in every aspect of our worldly lives. It's not directly about results. Sure change comes from following Christ.... but the first step is obedience....and having faith in God's truth....then the crazy stuff starts happening. Stuff we'd never even imagine was possible.
Certainly this is easy to say, and hopefully I won't be caught going around at party's saying this like it's something I always do....because that would be a lie, and it means I'm trying to impress people with fancy ideas.
It's a Wonderful Life
Whenever it snows, I think of that movie.....that and how much I'm going to hate the snow in 24 hours. It dumped, and I mean dumped, allllll over Flagstaff last week. I got to miss 2 days of finals, which was a fantastic blessing because I was able to relax for the first time in too long. Sometimes I like to think that I'll really enjoy the snow, sit on a warm couch with a Snuggie, and book by some dead guy, hot chocolate (don't like the word cocoa) and perhaps a dog and watch the snow fall by a rather large window. (There may be some subtle music playing in this daydream but I really just can't decide yet...I like the silence sometimes).
Anyways, it's much better than the reality of my out of shape, heavily breathing form shoveling snow and cursing at the snowplow as it dumps huge clumps of snow/ice at the foot of my driveway while I'm falling down on my butt and my neighbors laugh.
Veggie Tales in My Stomach
I have this idea that my roommate Erik and I are going to be vegetarians for six months starting Jan 1 (it's convenient this way....not a resolution). There's no ethical agenda.....I just want to see if I can do it....I'll keep everyone updated on that
The Perspective of Distance and Why I Think It Sucks
Whenever I leave a place I've been for a long time, I always get this wave of insight into all of the things that I didn't like about where I just was and the areas I could have improved in. I absolutely hate this, mostly because I know I'm going to have to remember it all and apply it to future situations. I hate this because it means that I've been apathetic and it's taken sudden, drastic movement to make me aware of this. This is probably just how it's suppose to work....and I'll accept that, I just think it's stupid (mostly when this is how I'm made aware of situations where I may be hurting others, myself, or God)
So this has been a long post, and I think the free time is going to allow me to do this a lot more over the break, I think there are lots of things to write about. Hopefully this all finds you in a place that's good (I'll let you guys figure out what "good" means to you)
-Geoff
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Where the Wild Things Are
This morning I am not going to class and eating dry Cinnamon Toast Crunch out of the box because I have no milk. This does not feel like a waist of time.
So let's talk about something interesting, likeeee the polarizing effect of Spike Jonze and his latest film "Where the Wild Things Are". Upfront, I didn't care for it that much. I won't say it was a terrible movie, because surely worse have been made (http://fvsf.files.wordpress.com/2007/05/roadhouse.jpg) and worse will be made (any movie involving Brittany Murphy). Of course, this is all a matter of opinion so feel free to disagree, but what I'm getting at is that I don't think Spike and company should be blamed for people not liking the movie.
Sure it felt like a gutless plea to the nostalgia of 20 something hipsters at times, but I also saw something really beautiful at the midnight showing.
What I saw was a room full of strangers bonding over a brief, shared moment in everyone's childhood. That was great, my favorite part of the whole experience. It may have been obnoxious at times (howls and all), but it felt genuine, and real. I don't think moments like that can be faked, and that alone was worth the money.
To All The Haters
It's a bummer that my joke of saying "I liked the book better" didn't catch on....mostly because there were people saying that seriously. I'm not gonna saying something condescending like "it's a movie, get over it" but I might say there are more productive things to get fired up over in this life, like why I'm not friends with this guy:
Ah, now I'm going to study for my rapidly approaching french test (2 hours away),
!
So let's talk about something interesting, likeeee the polarizing effect of Spike Jonze and his latest film "Where the Wild Things Are". Upfront, I didn't care for it that much. I won't say it was a terrible movie, because surely worse have been made (http://fvsf.files.wordpress.com/2007/05/roadhouse.jpg) and worse will be made (any movie involving Brittany Murphy). Of course, this is all a matter of opinion so feel free to disagree, but what I'm getting at is that I don't think Spike and company should be blamed for people not liking the movie.
Sure it felt like a gutless plea to the nostalgia of 20 something hipsters at times, but I also saw something really beautiful at the midnight showing.
What I saw was a room full of strangers bonding over a brief, shared moment in everyone's childhood. That was great, my favorite part of the whole experience. It may have been obnoxious at times (howls and all), but it felt genuine, and real. I don't think moments like that can be faked, and that alone was worth the money.
To All The Haters
It's a bummer that my joke of saying "I liked the book better" didn't catch on....mostly because there were people saying that seriously. I'm not gonna saying something condescending like "it's a movie, get over it" but I might say there are more productive things to get fired up over in this life, like why I'm not friends with this guy:
Ah, now I'm going to study for my rapidly approaching french test (2 hours away),!
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Songs About Dustin Hoffman (And the Rapidly Approaching Fall!)
This is not going to be the most interesting blog post ever.....
It's fall outside, and over the last few years I've really grown to appreciate Flagstaff's ability to grow old in shades of orange, red and brown. It makes me feel more comfortable growing fat and sentimental. Like if I sell out for shopping at Target on Saturday afternoons after soccer games, it won't be such a bad thing.
This is a first post with no agenda. I don't having anything wonderfully original to share today, perhaps in the future we can all sit down and discuss the meaning of life, what following Jesus looks like, or whether or not Adam had a belly button...but for now I just want to make this, know that it exists and try to be consistent. There are thousands of fizzled blogspot type things on the web and I'd really like this to not contribute to internet pollution, much like this piece of junk: http://randomthoughtsbouncedoffawall.blogspot.com/
The Name
Well before I end this relatively brief post I want to explain why I went with the name "The View from the Bottom". I think about Jesus, a lot, and I think about what following Him looks like...a lot and one of the reaccuring phrases in Jesus' life seems to be the whole "first will be last last will be first" shtick, which I love.
It seems to me that following Jesus basically takes aspirations of being on top in this world (i.e. six figured job, house in the burbs, relative safety and a nice car) and says that's not what we measure success by, that we're no longer trying to get on top, but hang out around the bottom (which is where Jesus seemed to be most of the time on Earth anyways). What this long-winded post is getting at is that Christianity encourages the view of the bottom instead of from the top. I like that, so much that I'm going to name this terribly awkward blog after it. So there! Do a dance, eat some chips, my rant is over!
Now really, before I go, I want to share the thoughts of Edward Hirsch, a poet I've been into lately. He's got this poem called "For the Sleepwalkers" and it's got one of the most beautiful phrasings I've ever heard in it:
"That's why I want to say something astonishing
like: Our hearts are leaving our bodies.
Our hearts are thirsty black handkerchiefs
flying through the trees at night, soaking up
the darkest beams of moonlight, the music
of owls, the motion of wind-torn branches.
And now our hearts are thick black fists
flying back to the glove of our chests"
I think it's pretty, it makes me feel something vulnerable.
Okay, I'll shut up now
It's fall outside, and over the last few years I've really grown to appreciate Flagstaff's ability to grow old in shades of orange, red and brown. It makes me feel more comfortable growing fat and sentimental. Like if I sell out for shopping at Target on Saturday afternoons after soccer games, it won't be such a bad thing.
This is a first post with no agenda. I don't having anything wonderfully original to share today, perhaps in the future we can all sit down and discuss the meaning of life, what following Jesus looks like, or whether or not Adam had a belly button...but for now I just want to make this, know that it exists and try to be consistent. There are thousands of fizzled blogspot type things on the web and I'd really like this to not contribute to internet pollution, much like this piece of junk: http://randomthoughtsbouncedoffawall.blogspot.com/
The Name
Well before I end this relatively brief post I want to explain why I went with the name "The View from the Bottom". I think about Jesus, a lot, and I think about what following Him looks like...a lot and one of the reaccuring phrases in Jesus' life seems to be the whole "first will be last last will be first" shtick, which I love.
It seems to me that following Jesus basically takes aspirations of being on top in this world (i.e. six figured job, house in the burbs, relative safety and a nice car) and says that's not what we measure success by, that we're no longer trying to get on top, but hang out around the bottom (which is where Jesus seemed to be most of the time on Earth anyways). What this long-winded post is getting at is that Christianity encourages the view of the bottom instead of from the top. I like that, so much that I'm going to name this terribly awkward blog after it. So there! Do a dance, eat some chips, my rant is over!
Now really, before I go, I want to share the thoughts of Edward Hirsch, a poet I've been into lately. He's got this poem called "For the Sleepwalkers" and it's got one of the most beautiful phrasings I've ever heard in it:
"That's why I want to say something astonishing
like: Our hearts are leaving our bodies.
Our hearts are thirsty black handkerchiefs
flying through the trees at night, soaking up
the darkest beams of moonlight, the music
of owls, the motion of wind-torn branches.
And now our hearts are thick black fists
flying back to the glove of our chests"
I think it's pretty, it makes me feel something vulnerable.
Okay, I'll shut up now
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