Living Rarefied

A trap I fall into very easily…

When you are on a good run in life, your inner ego can move to the exterior and have a negative effect. I find it easy to replace your faith with your ego in your thoughts and your faith becomes a lie on the outside.

I have been around some great people this year. I spent a weekend at a retreat with my friend John and was able to experience great conversations with great men. But an easy trap is to fall back on the content of the conversation, story instead of the person you shared it with. Pull that one line/idea out of the conversation and run wild with it and start more conversations based on it.

I believe this data/information all helps sharpen you a little bit. But we need to check the core of why we share it. I often catch myself sharing it because there is only one other guy in my community who was there and that gives me a sense of power, ownership on the idea…

I don't believe this means I need to keep the information to myself, but I do think that in conversations with close friends, reading blogs, I see arrogance in my tone as well as others and something needs to change, the core of why we share, why I share needs to be straightened out. It needs to grow from the heart, not from other places. It needs to be faith centered, not ego centered. It needs to be love centered, not controversy centered. My struggles need to be love centered, becuase the struggles are a part of me and I need to love that. My feelings need to be love centered, the good and the bad…

For pure love is not arrogance, it consists of being humble and submissive…

Ethan Surprise Me

I have sold out to some advertising… You'll see some sporadically throughout the site…

I don't expect much to come out of it, but thought I would offer it up. If you have seen my t-shirt collection, I owe it all to Defunker.com and BustedTees.com. I feel I should help drive some traffic their way because they have some cool shirts…

But I am just trying to find new ways to support the blog costs… Data connection, hosting, bandwidth usage, and other misc costs…

thanks

Ethan testing

Last night in bed and on the phone I came up with a thought that stuck with me through the night and probably kept me from sleeping all that well…

My friend and roommate Kevin spoke about his story of the past few years and how depression had settled in, and things he did to get past some of it. He said he felt he needed to be this funny guy all the time, which he is even when he isnt trying. He also listed a few other things that he felt he needed to be "on" with all the time for people to like/accept him. But then got to a point where he said I am who I am, lets work from there…

Similarly, in the last year I have been getting to that realization. I am what I am, lets work with it… I feel fortunate enough to say my story is less intense, no crazy events happened as a result of it, I didnt seek out counseling, it just didnt get bad, but it may have at some point if I didnt come to the same conclusion.

I am who I am…

Ephesians 5:11-14

Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for it is light that makes everything visible. This is why it is said:
"Wake up, O sleeper,
rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.

As men, it is difficult for us to show emotion or expose our feelings because we are supposed to be strong, tough, manly… A prime example can be found from my weekend. I was up north a little bit for a friend's bachelor party. We were playing bocce ball and a few of us noticed a cottage 4 down from us had a whole flock of women moving in for the weekend. Later on we were sitting around the bonfire telling jokes, war stories, and other things guys do around a fire. A few guys went down to see if maybe they wanted to join in our bonfire. In the window on the porch they could see the girls all in a circle on the floor and 2 of them sobbing. I am guessing their conversations weren't as shallow as ours. I few stories I heard almost made me cry they were so funny, but regardless the 2 images help solidify some of the stereotype of what a man should be like.

The truth is, nobody is attracted to people's darkness. That is why it is so hard for ourselves to open up with our darkness. A fear of everybody running away if we even crack the door open to some of it. I have made some drastic lifestyle changes in the past year. Although no bigger than the change I made when I was 18 to get into that lifestyle…

So in reading Ephesians 5 I found strength in that no matter what came as a result, I would never be alone… I quit drinking for many reasons. A crutch I often use when people ask me why is the financial crutch, "I was taking time off of work and spending too much money on it" TRUE, but not the reason. Or the health reason, "I have had trouble sleeping and feeling energized, now its better" TRUE and FALSE, I still struggle sleeping and feeling overly energetic. The real answer was cloudyness. It was the fact that it was clouding people's image of who I really was. More importantly, it was clouding my image of who I really was.

I didn't have a problem over the past few years, probably in college I did, but I was in college right? So it was ok, or at least that's what we are told… It wasn't until I was a few months of no booze that I realized even then random beers with Dave when we were just hanging out casually have a tremendous effect on my mind and soul. Even the Summit Pale Ale at Minikahda after a round of golf, had that same effect. Even having one at dinner with my family, had that same effect.

Now before you start thinking and maybe you already have started thinking that I am against alcohol, or I wont like you or accept you if you drink, or that I think you are all sinners, or that I am on a pedestal… Stop right there. These are my experiences, these are my stories, my thoughts and then they are your decisions and your thoughts. I had people in college belittle me because of the drinking and I wish none of that upon anybody.

After my decision, I had people that said they would remain by my side through the process, only to check in every few weeks or so and then when the weekends would come, they were off in the downtown/uptown scene, doing everything that initially I told them I couldn't do.. I spent many many nights on the weekends, home in front of the TV. Going to bed at 10 on a Friday night. Sad and feeling abandoned. There were a lot of people I knew I had to seperate myself from to help me out of that lifestyle. But there were people I wanted to rely on and count on and I felt let down. Relationships drastically changed. It made it that much harder to see them in the lifestyle because I kept seeing myself in them…Things I wanted to forget, but guess that God said he was going to strengthen me through seeing myself in that realm.

So I exposed my darkness of alcohol as instructed in Ephesians and I cannot begin to tell you how much I have been healed in other areas I didn't know were dark or clouding my relationships. God has made me ok with who I am at the core and not who I could make myself be. He's done that by a lot of time spent alone. You need to start liking yourself when you spent so many nights alone while friends planned things you couldn't do. God has surrounded me with people who support my core being. Who accept and are attracted to my core being. He already had a few people in place before I made the change. 3 years ago he put a guy named Rob in place. 2 years ago he put a girl named Cathy in place. 1 year ago he put a guy named Stefan in place to be a friend and listen and challenge me indirectly… Today he is constantly putting people in my life who accept me, who are attracted to the core Ethan. I don't have to put on a show to get them to like me. If they don't like my core, that's fine now because I dont have to put any energy into them as I am sticking to myself and how I was made.

I'd like it if everybody liked me.. But I dont think that would say much of my friendships, or how much they know me. It would mean I am masking my faults, my darkness, because not everybody is attracted to "the junk", only the important few are…

Ethan Feeling, Surprise Me, testing

As I expected, last night was tough…

We went to a local establishment that you can rent board games, Nintendo games and such from. We sat on couches and watched as people played Super Mario Brothers on the 8-bit Nintendo… Amazing how after years of not playing, the warp zones and hidden coin boxes are still in your memory.

As we watched and talked, you could sense a bit of strangeness in the air, but things were not different. One strange fact was that the group assembled hasn't gotten together like this since the day we won the kickball championship last summer. Sad that it took somebody moving for us all to gather 1 year later.

As we walked to my car to say our goodbye's you could tell there was a lot of strength and fighting to keep back emotions and try to remain strong. Small jokes to keep a smile were said. But there aren't enough jokes in the world to last long enough to postpone reality.

In my 10 minute drive home, it seems as if every image/experience was replayed in my head. Kicked off by the fact that the 4 of us standing there last night were the same 4 who met over 2 years ago at a homeless shelter. 2 pairs of best friends… The videotape quickly continued to our first serious conversation about our pasts. Talking about our toughest battles we have faced and how quickly my knuckles were turned white as snow and our pants close to being soiled as a tire from a semi-truck blew up and nailed my car, then realising we didn't have any gas and luckily coasted into the pumps at the Mills Fleet Farm in Alexandria MN. Then onto the nights where no kids showed up at Young Life and we were left as leaders to pray. To our time in El Salvador together on the same team. Her screaming at the cockroaches in the latrine and me acting all manly like I didnt mind them… Photographing "the State Fair pose" (see previous post) Countless episodes we encountered over the past 2 years were replayed. Sometimes my extra ability to remember vivid imagery of my life is a blessing, sometimes a curse. Unfortunately for last night and today, it is a curse because it makes it that much harder. Fortunately soon, I will rely on those vivid images to boost me up in my spirits.

Thankfully I have plenty of these goofy pictures from over the years…

Ethan testing

A few months ago, I wrote about an encounter with my buddy Owen… I guess it was 4 months ago.

Monday night I had a wonderful surprise and got to see him again. In 4 months, I think he grew 4 inches, but his spirit was the same old simple Owen. He's in the middle of basketball camp right now. 4 hours a day for each day this week. I am a little scared because as a 6 year old, his basketball handling skills are past mine!

His focus this week is basketball camp. He starts the 1st grade in 2 weeks, thats a pretty big step. Going to full days of school, new kids, new teachers, new building… But Owen's focus is on basketball camp…

I have a lot going on ahead of me, Young Life begins again, some big projects at work are ahead of me, some fun vacations, my older sister is moving home. A bunch to look forward to and be anxious about, but I am trying my best to stay in the present and love the best I can right now, share experiences with people now, grow friendships now. I don't want to miss the "now"… My biggest fear is looking down the road too far ahead and missing the exciting things happening around me right now.

A few people I have been increasing time and intentionallity with are helping me stay in the now. We all do chat a little about our passions and dreams, but really focusing on the history part and what makes each of us, and how we got to where we are, is really helping me stay in the present.

I like this picture I found. It struck a chord with my thoughts today… This little ducky is only focused on the fly it is reaching for. He isn't worried about if there is another predator looking for him, whether he will get his dry head wet when he comes down, whether he will remember how to swim when he comes down. He is focused on the fly. Thats how I want to be focused; on the present, on things that are right in front of me… Not looking past the events and people of right now.

Ethan testing

Pulled from the Washington Post

Speaking on the same program Monday, Robertson said killing Chavez would be cheaper than starting a war to oust him. Getting rid of Chavez would stop Venezuela from becoming a "launching pad for communist influence and Muslim extremism," Robertson said.

"We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability," Robertson said. "We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator."

I have been spending some of the morning looking at his website learning more about his background and how he may have stirred up such a remark.

I found his mission statement, short and concise, well put I think

PatRobertson.com - I want to be part of God's plan of what He is doing on earth, and I want to bring Him glory.

My question is do the 2 quotes work together? Absolutely not… I don't think part of God's plan here on earth involves a prominent figure of Faith publicly asking the United States to kill somebody who based on belief, may become a threat to the world.

This hurts my heart more than seeing people preaching in parks telling people they are going to hell. More than somebody who says I am going to hell becuase I used to drink too much.

I feel like this week Pat Robertson has switched his mission statement to: I thought I wanted to be part of God's plan of what He is doing on earth, and I thought I wanted to bring Him glory. But I guess I am looking for the glory…

Ethan Daily, Surprise Me

I close friend, closer than I ever act or will be able to convey to her, is moving this week. She is headed to Colorado to be in charge of middle school ministry. I have been blessed for over 2 years now to have her at my side with the Young Life ministry I am involved with. Almost fittingly, we participated in a Flood event from our church. It was just over 2 years ago we met at a Flood event in a homeless shelter in downtown Minneapolis. Shortly after that we were driving up to Castaway Club in Detroit Lakes, MN to be counselors for a junior high camp. From day 1 she dove right in and gave it her all. I expect the lucky folks in Boulder will experience the same passion I saw in her 2 years ago…

The feeling part or un-feeling part comes in the picture because it is one of those situations you aren't sure it is real, but 1 minute after it happens, you will feel it. I am in a spot now where I am tremendously happy for her and excited for her new journey and am trying my best to keep my chin up. Her mom and I were joking on Saturday night that it is weird now cause we know she is leaving but don't believe it. She has always came back from trips and said "I am moving there" but has never done it. So in a way it feels a little like one of those situations. But we laughed at the fact that once she leaves we will probably need a weekly support group for those going through withdrawl from her physical presence…

I think it is similar to when we dropped off my sister to college in 1996. There was so much celebration going on in the days leading up to the goodbye that things are all great and you forget about the fact when I wake up for school that dreadful Tuesday after Labor Dar, she wouldn't be there in the kitchen to eat breakfast with me…Except this time, it is when that first YL club comes around, it wont be the same. When Sunday nights come around, after church she won't be there for me to joke around with and push eachother's buttons that we know so well. When I am having problems/issues, my usual partner for emergency Caribou's won't be able to show up. When I need accountability from the person who knows me better than anybody else on this great big planet, it will have to be on the phone, email or through a spendy flight to Colorado… She won't be around to watch Brian Regan on Comedy Central over and over and over so that we can watch it wherever we go cause we know it so well. Our domestics will be long distance now, I wont have her to slap me in the face with reality if I get out of line. The list could go on, but soon it would only be me and her that would understand it…

Oh how lucky they will be in Boulder… They have no idea about the return they will get from investing in her time and abilities…

Buckaroo, thanks for it all… It's not over…

-Partner

Ethan Feeling

I had a conversation last night that brought up some things I had been thinking about heavily in the last year. I had initially started waiting for the signal in April of 2004, thinking about leaving my job and wanted to wait for something to come along behind it so I would be ok financially during the transition. So I stuck it out for 6 more months, sitting, wishing, waiting for something, for a sign…

I have been thinking about it lately again, trying to see if I did the right thing. I know I did the right thing in leaving my old job. It didn't bring me life, only death… But I was thinking about the way I handled it.

I was sitting, wishing, waiting for a sign.. That's where the problem was. I wasn't listening. I think we all wait on decisions until we are hit in the face with the next step or answer to the decision at hand because we want to make sure we'll be ok. I think that if we sit, wish and wait, we will go nowhere. I think if we listen, we will find God speaking to us each day, giving us nudges of what he has in store for us. With that comes the trust, that acting on those nudges with an open ear and heart can only build upon. WIth business of daily life, it is so difficult to take the time to listen. So we sit and wait to be hit in the face with our next step of the journey. I think God is constantly trying to teach us to trust him and we can if we only listen. I know this because each summer of the past 3years I have gone on Young Life camps with kids, last summer I went to El Salvador. On these trips, you are pulled away from your cell phone, internet, TV, iPod, job, car, newspapers, family, friends, and everything else that makes up your comfort zone. All the distractions of your daily life that keep me from listening to God are left behind. It becomes easy to listen to God there, when you are out of your comfort zone, I tend to rely more on God because I have nothing else to comfort me. So the challenge is keeping up that trust in your comfort zone. Not only keeping it up, but building it.

What is harder? Following Jesus in your comfort zone or out of it? I submit it is harder in my comfort zone. I am falsely led to believe I have the strength to do it on my own. Until something extremely difficult comes up, I can manage on my own, I can tune out from the world by strapping my earbuds into my pod and fall into the peaceful world of music.

I liken it to having an intern. Interns can't do much, but they are eager to learn so they will do the small stuff you give to them. It is then once the small stuff is out of the way that you can get a foothold and really gain some ground and make progress. Start by giving God the small stuff, it will free you up to realize life is easier when you don't have to worry, stress about the details. Bit by bit, I hope my trust builds so there comes a point where it isn't even a question where my trust/strength lies.

I hope to become his tool, not a new power tool, but an old fashioned tool. Where I am useless without his efforts, that I realize I am useless without his strength… I feel like a semi-automated power tool. Maybe like a 10" COMPOUND MITER SAW with EXACTLINEâ„¢ that I was using last night. Where I still try to do most of the work, but cannot function without somebody pulling the trigger to get the saw going and pulling the saw arm down to cut the wood and do the work.

I didn't talk about the power tools with my friend. She may have thought I was crazy…

Ethan testing

Things have been pretty good lately. I have spent a lot of time with people I want to be with and people who want to be with me. I got to see my Mom 3 days in a row, Sat-Mon… Was on about a 5-day streak seeing/hanging with my Dad. Helping him with his new Apple notebook, converting contacts, calendar items, notes, tasks, files from a Windows notebook to an Apple.

I am a little panicked about this fall and what Young Life will look like, but I am not as worried as I was a year ago.

New friendships are forming, although excited to grow, I am not looking far ahead. Trying to stay in the present and actually doing a good job at it.

My nextdoor neighbor isn't as rude to me anymore, at least she says hello now. There was a whole drama over the last year about her wanting to bury her power lines across my yard (they run diagonally across my yard and hers) I wouldn't sign the easement, because I have heard it will decrease the value of my property as there would be no option to expand to a 2-car garage. She's been pretty bitter about it and I see no reason to fight. But I think she is finally accepting that overhead powerlines are the way it has to be for now..

I guess there is only 2 things I am really anticipating or not living in the present about… My sister Leah moving home soon, and finishing the basement so I can get a big-screen TV to watch movies, sports, OC and 24 on this fall. Not sure when either will happen, but hopefully soon. I have no control over when Leah gets home from California, and I have been doing research and saving for the TV. I may not have any new furniture to watch the TV on, but you can rest assure the TV will be there.

Ethan Daily

I saw Wedding Crashers last night… Funny movie, although it got me thinking about telling the truth and if it is always the best thing to do…

It seems like in every movie that has a romantic twist to it involves some huge lies in order to get the girl and in the end the guy has some epiphany that he has to tell the truth. The funny thing is, everytime the guy comes clean, he gets the gal… Take Will Smith in Hitch for example, he didn't lie, but witheld the truth from Eva Mendes' character.

I am posing this as an open-ended question/dialog because I don't believe for a second that this would ever happen in our "real life". I think we are being trained by movies/tv to think it would work and therefore is ok.

I may have used to live along the lines of John and Jeremy of Wedding Crashers, not intentionally, but I would keep parts of me away from people I meet, girls I went out with, tried to be the one they wanted me to be… The funny guy, the soft guy, the dick, the athlete, the loud guy, the quiet guy, the party animal, the geek… Ok so the geek was never a trait somebody was looking for.

But guess what, I am all of those… Sometimes at the same time, sometimes over the span of a week or month… But I chose to accentuate one of them at a time and hide the others. I could do that for a few weeks, then truth would come out and I wasn't the animal they thought they had found, they found I had some limits, they found I can be an ass at sometimes, they found that sometimes my geekness comes out when you least expect it.

Lately I have tried to be open with myself and others and not try to hide parts of me that aren't "pleasing"…

• I may joke and make light about being a geek and playing with computers, but reality is at home I have a desk that looks like Mission Control at NASA. Its open there for everybody who comes over to see. I AM A GEEK.
• I have a faith that I am not afraid to talk about. I used to hide it from people because it wasn't in line with my actions, but as I have talked about it, shown it.. My actions have come in line with my faith.
• I am a funny guy, I have realised where my humor lies and how it comes out. I don't change that on a per-audience basis. That is when I became unfunny. I have my humor and few people understand it, and thats ok, because those are the people who I want to enjoy my humor… Its not for everybody…
• Sometimes its good to be quiet and sometimes its good to be loud.. When I used to put on the act of a shy/quiet guy to get the soft image out there, maybe we would go to a Gopher hockey game and maybe Don Adam is refereeing. Perhaps they are playing Denver (Adam's favorite team) and maybe there are a few questionable calls. No matter what act I was trying to put on, the real me comes out and I am screaming at Don Adam. Not cause I hate him, but because of my passion for Gopher hockey. And if you are passionate about something, its hard to be quiet about it…
• You may find it unthinkable that I played "the dick" when I was hanging out with a girl in college.. But I did.. Started as a joke, but I got such a reaction out of it, I just went with it…

Which brings me to why I put my blog URL in my email signatures… I don't say "GO HERE" but I put it there for those who are curious to learn more about me. Its who I am and who I am going to be, I am not going to modify myself so that somebody will like me, becuase I will then be hiding a characteristic of myself that somebody else enjoys about me.

n interesting piece of putting my URL in my email signature. I was on the golf course about a month ago. Telling my Dad a story I hadn't shared with him. He said, "oh yeah, I remember reading about that on your blog." I heard the record skip in my head and the music stopped… I was thinking wow, my Dad reads my blog and sees things I have never talked about before… But then I remembered, its my Dad, if anybody should know whats going on in my life, he should…

So is it ever permissible to lie or withhold the truth? Even if it is for the better for another person… Maybe it is something, some information you have but shouldn't have.. And if you tell her, it will crush her and make her wonder why you had the information before her. If you dont tell her, it will eventually get back to her that you knew and didn't tell her.

I have found it is better to be upfront and honest with information ever if it means a slight kick to the midsection… Its a lot better than getting a severe beatdown later on and easier to recover from and move ahead with your relationship…

Ethan testing