A Lily Among the Thorns Friday, Sep 28 2007

So Christina wanted to check her e-mail while she was over. This blog is my homepage, so she saw it and she asked what the Fleur De Lys at the top was. I told her it was French. She asked what it meant. I didn’t really know.

Turns out its been around a lot longer then the French, although it is most strongly associated with their monarchy. The symbol is a stylized flower. Good ol’ wikipedia tells us that its also associated with the Trinity and the Annunciation of the birth of Christ by the arcangel Gabriel.

There’s also a reference to Song of Songs, where Solomon says:

“Like a lily among thorns,

So is my love among the daughters.”

Later, his Beloved responds:

“His left hand is under my head,

And his right hand embraces me.”

I think that will be the idea we are going to symbolize here.

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Now playing: Paul Oakley – House of Gold
via FoxyTunes

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That’s how I roll. Thursday, Sep 27 2007

Sleep has just been upgraded to a luxury, which means I’ll have to get by without it.

I’m just getting squeezed in too many ways.

My coming financial aide isn’t, and I just found out yesterday might not ever.

I’m getting smoked by deadlines in Biology and Business Algebra.

I’m watching Adee or working most of the rest of the time.

I’ve got overages on my cell phone for the first time ever, and they are hefty.

Guerrilla Theatre is still in the starting gate, and the school club deadlines are slipping by too.

So get ready for insomniac Remy… assuming I have the willpower for it.

Course I do. I can’t NOT have it, so I have it.
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Now playing: Delirious? – All the Way
via FoxyTunes

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Three finger salute Wednesday, Sep 26 2007

I wonder if someone is praying for me right now…

I just had a realization that is so obvious, yet hasn’t occurred to me until just this moment.

While Christina was drifting away during the last few months, I pleaded with her: find a spiritually mature woman in your life who has been through what you’re going through now. Connect with someone who can give you hope, who’s own life proves that you can make it through your own struggles.

Sadly, Christina didn’t do this, but rather withdrew from most of the friends she did have.

Am I blogging about this to point the finger at Christina? Nope. Because as the old saying goes, there’s three more of my own pointing right back at me.

Where was my mentor?

Sure, I had counselors and friends and buddies and whole bunch or support people. But where was the more spiritually mature man leading me? Whose authority did I submit myself too?

Where was I setting an example?

There wasn’t one.

What does that make me? Telling someone else to do something I hadn’t done myself?

A hypocrite.

So interesting that such a blatant failure to lead should have escaped my attention for months until now.

The flipside is that whenever I discover a way I have been doing exactly what I’ve seen my spouse do or vice versa, when I see these thorough connections between our two lives and personalities, it makes me feel that we are really expressing one life–that we truly are soulmates.

Time to find a mentor. I’ve got a candidate in mind. Hope he’s not too busy. That’s the thing about mentors: they tend to be successful by definition and therefore subject to previous commitments. . .

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Now playing: Red House Painters – Silly Love Songs
via FoxyTunes

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Just One Star to Navigate By Wednesday, Sep 26 2007

Thank God I have Him at all.

There is so much going on right now. Some of it is very good. Some of it is very bad. But it all adds up to a lot and I’m just trying to keep up.

I’m working now, and that’s going good. I’m going to push for them to move me up to server. It will be a stretch for me as a person. There’s a part of me that wants to stay a host because learning to be a server is a whole other ball game and I don’t know that I can swing it. Which is why I want to do it and knock the teeth out of that part of me. Perfect love casts out all fear.

I need the money I’d get from serving, now more than ever. I just found a letter from school saying my financial aid has been suspended. This is especially bad because I’m already behind on the rent. I was counting on my financial aid check. Now I’m not going to get it for at least two weeks, if at all. It depends on how my appeal goes to have it reinstated.

My writing is going very well. I have fifteen pages of my screenplay done. That means I’m 1/16th of the way to a finished draft. And my best friend Ramsey just got signed to a management group, so that’s really encouraging to hear he just got a greenlight in his acting career. He’s been persevering for years and years, so I hope some solid work comes out of this and soon.

Monday was a really good day with Christina. I love her so much. Anything good with her is mountain air for my heart and soul.

I’m trying so hard–so hard–to just give my life over to God’s direction. But I’m having such difficulty discerning His voice. I know this financial aid situation is a test of faith. The timing was so conspicuous.

Here’s what I know:

I am supposed to write.

I am to be patient and let Him work.

I am to trust in Him to provide.

I am to fulfill all of my obligations to the best of my ability.

I am to worship and praise Him and seek His rest in the midst of my strivings.

Only two out of five of these things are clear to me: the writing and the worship. The other three, I don’t know quite how to go about. Sometimes I have ideas, but I wonder if I should pursue them or not. Sometimes I can’t think of a thing. There are other things, especially concerning Christina,

where I JUST DON’T KNOW WHAT THE HELL I AM DOING. I know my life is a journey, that I won’t become who I want to be in a day.

I just want to be who I am supposed to be on this day.

I’m at sea, the water is glassy smooth, the sun is hidden by the clouds, the GPS went overboard weeks ago, and I am just desperate for some kind of marker so I can set a course.

I know You are out there. I can feel you lifting my despair when it encroaches.

But what am I to do?

—————-
Now playing: Moi – You Said
via FoxyTunes

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The Root of the Problem Saturday, Sep 22 2007

So last night I’m at work and there’s a new girl who is going through host training. She’s actually coming on as a server, but you have to know just about everything so they have you cross train through all the different stations. I’ve been there for all of a week and a half, but I guess that’s enough to train someone else. Actually it isn’t, because most of her questions exposed my ignorance of my own job–but hey, maybe in three weeks I’ll know everything.

Hosting the front desk at a restaurant reminds me of something a jet fighter pilot said about his job: long periods of tedium and boredom punctuated by a few minutes of pulse-pounding terror. Okay, so I haven’t experienced any terror at work, just a crush when all the reservations and a couple of walks-ins wanting a table for six all show up while three phone lines are ringing. But in between there’s not much to do but talk.

So its fairly soon that my current marital un-status comes up; especially if I mention my daughter. It goes: “Oh, you have a daughter? How old is she? How old are you? Really? Are you married?”

So I say my wife is divorcing me and it sucks because its definitely not fun, but its okay, and if they ask why is it okay I let them know because God has promised me that no matter what He loves me and nothing is beyond His Love and He works everything for good, or as much of that as I can say that I feel will be received .

So this time she asks and I say,”Yeah, sort of. I’m going through a divorce right now.” And her response is “Oh. That’s too bad. Were you financially unstable?”

I had to smile. She’s right of course–finances are an important component in any family. But it stood out to me that she asked about money first, and in such a carefully crafted Country-Clubbish code question. You only learn to talk like that at that age from the folks you grow up with. When I answered honestly “Why yes. Yes we were,” it seemed to suitably diagnose the root cause of the problem for her.

Was money a problem? A stress inducer? Oh yes. But WHY, dear friends, was there a lack of money?

There was no money because there was no passion. There were dreams. There were not adventures.

That was the problem.

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Now playing: Tegan and Sara – We Didn’t Do It
via FoxyTunes

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Morning Run Friday, Sep 21 2007

Went running today. Managed to run about three and half miles.
Here’s a map of my route
I love running now. It’s kind of the first thing I’ve been able to stick too until it isn’t hard to do anymore. It’s challenging, but I really enjoy it. I find myself excited when I’m going to bed the night before. I’d like to get everything about my life to be like that.
The best part is going another block past my apartment. I’ve already run three miles, and if I just turn aside, I’ll be done. But I want to complete the whole box of the route, so I push on and run around an extra two blocks. It gives my willpower a good shot in the arm to know that I can do that, to know it because I DID do it.

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Now playing: Third Eye Blind – Camouflage
via FoxyTunes

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The Air I Love Thursday, Sep 20 2007

Weather was beautiful today.

It’s been pleasant in Pasadena the last few days, but today the temperature dropped ten degrees and every breath of air had that crisp winter mountain taste. I love it.
The mountains themselves were popping out of the northern view.

I live in such a beautiful land–and I get to walk around campus and drink it all in.

—————-
Now playing: Adam Dachis – Final Fantasy 6 Little Painter Girl OC ReMix
via FoxyTunes

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I AM George Clooney (or maybe Mark Wahlberg)! Tuesday, Sep 18 2007

Alright, I’m here.
Finally got my log-in squared away.
So, what’s going on right now?
* Wife left.
* We’re splitting custody and all that fifty-fifty, so I guess I’m a part-time Dad now.
* Just starting working as a host at a pretty upscale seafood place, and I got to say–I love it. The job itself is pretty repetitive, and I know it can easily get boring in a couple of weeks, but for now I’m enjoying that pleasant feeling associated with taking home some cash you earned, and have really taken to the whole “fancy customer service shirt and tie” identity. Someone asked me the other day if I was the manager, which is cool.
* Working on all my wonderful issues–the ones that prevent me from delivering on any of the promises I made to my wife when we got married. I can’t list those here, but let’s sum up by saying I was living a passionless life and filling the void that left with junk. Now I’m un-junking and re-passionating (sounds like a ad-slogan for a fruity health drink).
Pursuing my endeavors:
* College Degree – two semesters to go until my AA, then on to University.
* Guerrilla Theatre – School club at Pasadena City College put together for the purpose of letting the students cut their teeth writing, directing, producing and marketing some shows. Like they do at real nonprofit theatres.
* Telos Theatre Society – My real (almost) nonprofit theatre. We launch our debut season in 2008.
* Screenwriting – I have a kick-ass script I’m working on. Its marketable, sellable, original and most important of all: its a really compelling story that I HAVE to tell. I love doing this.
* Playwriting – Still working on Bumble Bee. Lately I’ve been experimenting by writing it as a musical. This has taken both me and the articulation of the story in some very interesting directions.
* Relationship with God in the person of Jesus Christ, His Father and Spirit – This is really the most exciting and comforting part, and the foundation for everything else, and the source of peace during this time of storms. Sometime I get sucked into the waves, but for the most part I’m floating along peacefully in the eye of a hurricane.

I can see that, yes, their are horrendous winds on every side of me. If I’m foolish I can steer into them and get knocked around, and sometimes no matter what I do the calm disappears and the winds come and find me. But I’m learning to navigate this strange situation. There’s no land in sight, but I have a map. I know where safe harbor is, that I just have to wait until conditions clear up before I’ll feel the solid rock of land again. I’m not alone on this journey, I’m learning everyday, and most important, there’s a reason I’m on a boat out to sea in the first place. I trust in God’s promises to me, and I understand now is a time of testing in my life to show all, including myself, what it means to walk by faith. One thing it definitely doesn’t mean is being perfect. If I was perfect, I wouldn’t be here. It means to know what God has said He will do, and to trust in Him to do it, and not in anything else (like the junk mentioned earlier–that stuff is getting the old heave-ho over the side of the ship).
It means Authenticity.
It means chasing your dreams, not just having them–chasing until you lay hold of them or drown trying.

—————-
Now playing: Delirious? – White Ribbon Day
via FoxyTunes

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