Andrew M. Barnes

In case you missed it, the opening song at Elevation this week was With or Without You by U2, probably one of my favorite songs to date.  The bassline really carries this song.  Here are the lyrics, with a concert version following.

See the stone set in your eyes
See the thorn twist in your side
I wait for you

Sleight of hand and twist of fate
On a bed of nails she makes me wait
And I wait without you

With or without you
With or without you

Through the storm we reach the shore
You give it all but I want more
And I’m waiting for you

With or without you
With or without you
I can’t live
With or without you

And you give yourself away
And you give yourself away
And you give
And you give
And you give yourself away

My hands are tied
My body bruised, she’s got me with
Nothing to win and
Nothing left to lose

And you give yourself away
And you give yourself away
And you give
And you give
And you give yourself away

With or without you
With or without you
I can’t live
With or without you

With or without you
With or without you
I can’t live
With or without you
With or without you

It’s either late in the evening or early in the morning, depending on how you look at it.  Doesn’t change that it is 1:30am. 

It’s perspective, and we all have it.  Our experiences and our lifestyles dictate our varying perspectives.  A challenge I offer myself is to constantly evaluate all competing perspectives.  Different angles and perspectives give an insight into things you would have never imagined.   That would be what most would call ‘maturing’.  Tonight I had a flashback, a random flashback.  It led me to do an internet search for something I had done years ago. 

8 years ago I wrote a poem.  At the time I did alot more writing than I do now.  I kinda wish I’d get back into.  There was this one poem that even at the time stuck out, I revised it maybe 3x at the most, and to be honest I could revise a few grammatical errors at this point.  I’m pretty sure I remember who I was thinking about at the time….she’s now married. 

Reading this poem for the first time in 8 years, I couldn’t help but see myself from a different perspective.  The challenge as humans sometimes is to figure out if we are headed in the right direction in life or simply if we’ve matured.  I can’t help but look back at how I was when I wrote that poem.  How was I emotionally? or spiritually?  Over 8 years my perspective of myself has changed.  I now know myself better, I realize how far God has taken me even when I didn’t/don’t realize it.  Here it is (with a few edits), a very deep insight, circa 2000…

That Package
She likes a challenge, is that why she likes me?
It’s a matter of what I want
Do I care or do I want more?
Does that make a difference at all?
She will proceed without caution
Understanding its only me and time will tell
Will I change? Or is it a waste of time?
Do I need what she offers?
It seems too much to handle, but I care
For she might understand me
Does her face light up for me?
Is pity in her eyes?
Should it matter for my sake?
Is there more, am I a package of guilt in her mind?
Do I hold that package?
She seems outgoing, but I’m not
I want a friend, is she even a friend?
Is what I believe of myself what she believes a challenge?

Heres the link

“Any emotion, if it is sincere, is involuntary.” ~ Mark Twain

That quote alone encompasses where that poem came from.  I know myself better only because I remember a now competing perspective of who I am.

A tough question was asked of me tonight…”What does it mean to live a dangerous life for Christ?”  This isn’t a tough question because I don’t know the answer, it’s a tough question because I do know the answer. 

The first answer that came to mind was from the book of James, which just so happens to be one of my favorite books of the Bible.  The verse that played again over and over in my head is from James 1:22:

“Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves.  Do what it says.”

That is simply a tough pill to swallow.  It’s easy to read that verse and think about other people who should take that verses’ recommendation, its a whole other world to make scripture a constant burden on every action and thought, thus being intentional, in your own life.

In cliche-world, this is where the ‘rubber meets the road’, and where faith is actually practiced.  Christ doesn’t promise that following him will be easy.  Even with faith, a mountain of trust is required.  That trust is what makes faith work and grow in your life. 

Sometimes you just have to walk through pile after pile of crap and just trust/have faith, not that you won’t have to keep walking through the crap, but that by walking through that crap that it will have a beneficial impact on the cause of Christ.

That is what it means to live a dangerous life for Christ.  It’s the only way worth living.

The more I think about the times in my life where I have gotten the most frustrated or upset, the more I see how the root of the problem is a complete breakdown in communication.  I was going to say it’s a lack of communication, but I could cite examples of having constant communication with someone and having nothing of what needs to be said actually said.

I want more than anything for this post to make sense. 

Here is why I think there are breakdowns in communication.  Pity.  Atleast that’s how the one person will justify it in their head.  I’m not sure how anyone can consider it pity to not tell someone something they might not want to hear but still need to hear, but we all do it.  Just take a second and think about it.  I’ve taken ‘pity’ on others before, of course I’ve been on the losing end of the ‘pity’ game too many times for me to even count.  When the truth of what needed to be said actually does come out, it ends up feeling like a plow digging a trench through that person’s soul.  You may think that is overly dramatic.

I don’t.

What it comes down to is trust.  I think putting trust in someone else is a very honoring and valuable act.  By not communicating what needs to be communicated you have destroyed the trust that previously existed.  It can happen on large and small scales, in any form of relationship.

So don’t pity me, just tell me what I need to hear.  I’ll try to do the same for you regardless.

How easy would your life be if it were one massive cliche?

Everything about you simply standard issue.

Nothing inspiring.

No originality nor meaning.

An empty chorus.

Carrying along without rhythm.

An overlooked existence.

No need for God.

Drifting day to day with no challenges.

Walking merely in the greater gray of life.

No emotion.

With only commonplace thoughts.

Just another cliche not worth mentioning.

Sure, life would be easy…

This past Saturday a group of volunteers and staff from Elevation met up at Lake Park…Park(?) for lunch.  It was the typical Americana lunch with hot dogs, chips, soda, chocolate chip cookies (the only real American cookie).  I would probably eat that combination of foods everyday if wouldn’t someday kill me.  So anyway, we’re getting ready to dig in and the Brey asks everyone to go around say one thing you are thankful for.  Seems easy enough.  I was the second one in the circle so I guess I better think quick…

Guy #1: Sunshine.

Guy #2 (Me): Cool Breezes.

Everyone Else: Family, Friends, Jesus, etc.

Now lets get something straight, I am thankful for each of those things everyone else mentioned, but I think Guy #1 and myself have a different way of thinking when it comes to being thankful.  Most everyone is thankful for family, friends, Jesus, and etc., but to me those are somewhat cop-out answers, they’re easy.  Guy #1 and myelf could’ve easy said ‘weather’, but again that’s too easy.  Let’s breakdown our two answers…

Sunshine- Produced by a massive ball of fire, the effects of which travel millions of miles to produce and sustain life on our planet on a daily basis.

Cool Breezes- Keep individuals like myself and this guy who have a core temperature of 114 degrees from dying.

The worst part of this was my manhood being questioned for giving such an apparently unmannly answer as ‘cool breezes’.  Hey Marc, next time its a 100 degrees give me a call.

I wanted to write and post this before I head off to the last 49ers home game of the year versus George Washington.  Not that it’s crucial that you read this before the game, but it’s been at the top of my mind for the past couple of hours and I didn’t want to deprive any of you.

I know I’ve mentioned this somewhere before but I can’t remember where.   Anyway, today’s post is simply to educate you about myself.  In reality, by writing this, I’m hoping I can make alittle bit more sense about myself.  I don’t have a good intro so I’ll start with this…

Commitment scares me.

There is nothing more in my life that hangs over me everyday than my fear of commitment.  Right now all the women in the world are saying, ’see, guys are scared of commitment.’  I will submit to you this evening that being fearful of commitment isn’t necessarily a bad thing, of course I can’t really justify it in many ways as being a good thing.  Let me explain.

I’ve been in college now for the better part of a decade, actually its closer to 5 years, 6 years if you include the year I took off.  I’m asked atleast 2 or 3 times a week when I plan on graduating.  I’ve gotten to the point of just joking about it, because the question itself bothers me.  The joke is a merely a distraction of what I don’t want to think about- the future.  See, I can be deep!

Maybe you’re catching on.  Whenever I decide to graduate the next ‘phase’ of my life begins.  I know that sounds kinda lame, but there is no way of getting around it not being true.  To be honest, I would love more than anything to graduate, get a job, find my own place to live, and basically take care of myself, then at some point trick a girl into marrying me and at some point having her trick me into having kids, etc etc.   Sounds normal, kinda American Dreamish or whatever, but I wouldn’t be upset if things turned out like this.  Here’s my problem.

I like to keep myself open for big opportunities as they come up.  I’d love to get a descent job in New York and live somewhere in a small studio in Manhattan.  I’d also love to move to San Francisco and do ministry work.  I’d also love to wrestle a polar bear on his turf.  My point is, I don’t want to get locked into a situation that prevents me from experiencing other great things.

Pretty much all my friends are married or are getting married in the next few months.  I still have a few good friends who aren’t married, but they live in Atlanta and San Diego respectively.  Don’t get me wrong, this is neither a bashing of them getting married or a feel bad for Andrew session because he’s single.  Personally, I don’t really care right now.  Wow, I just about diverged too far there.  My point in saying the last few sentences is that I could easily graduate shortly, get a job, and get married all within less than 2 years max.  But I don’t think that’ll do much for me, satisfaction wise.

Again, things can change.  I don’t know what I want and half the time I don’t know what I’m doing.  Maybe fear of commitment isn’t such a bad thing.  Maybe the fear of commitment is there to keep us for doing things we know at the end of the day won’t satisfy us.

But maybe its just direction that I need.  Who knows.