Spotify, Blink-182, Kings Kaleidoscope

Blink-182. They have a new record out today, California. I'm excited to hear it. I've heard a few songs already. As of about three days ago, I no longer have Apple Music. Gotta save some cash. So, this summer, I opted for the free (limited) subscription of Spotify. I've been pleased for the most part. It's free. I have to listen to advertisements every so often, I can still listen to entire albums from artists I like, but they have to be shuffled. No big deal. There's this new album from Blink. I shuffled it this morning, but Spotify started throwing in tracks from older Blink-182 albums. I thought maybe I did something wrong. Maybe I'm shuffling the artist and not the selected album. Not the case. Although, I'm listening to the album now and it seems to be working alright.

 There are two new albums I'm excited about. Blink. Because it's Blink, AND Skiba's a part of the band now. It's great. Like Blink-182 featuring Alkaline Trio. I like. I like.

 The other album I'm excited brings some controversy. Yes, the controversy involves Christians. Kings Kaleidoscope released their newest last week. Can I put an emoji here? 😱😱 They say “fuck” in one of their songs. It sounds so silly and I didn't even want to be part of the discussion. Songs say “fuck” all the time. But, not “Christian” songs from “Christian” bands who sing worship songs that are played by worship bands in churches all over the country. It's a big deal. When I heard about it, I didn't think it was a big deal, because I'm probably a heretic. Just saying.

 I was talking with Lindsey about it this morning. Last night, I was wasting time on Facebook, looking at the comments for the Kings Kaleidoscope post of the announcement for the album release. The comments began with excitement. Then they were curious–“what's up with this track that says explicit?”. Then it went to outrage. Some of these fools were straight heartbroken. I was telling Lindsey what I saw. Some guy's world had just been turned upside down. It's like he experienced a glitch in the matrix. I don't know the guy, but I'll bet he watches Game of Thrones, or movies that say “fuck” all the time. He might brush it off. Or, maybe when he's really pissed, or frustrated and the only word that works is “fuck!”. Maybe not. Maybe his language and what he chooses to consume is all PG. I don't know.

I was reminded about that scene in Anchor Man when Ron Burgundy read the TelePrompTer, “go fuck yourselves, San Diego”. Ron Burgundy! You're poop! Why did you have to go and do that?

Kings Kaleidoscope had to know that song would be the focus of the entire album. Maybe they wanted to start a discussion. Christianity isn't always pretty. Sometimes, when I call out to God, the only thing that describes how I feel is, “fuck! I'm hurting. I'm alone. I need help.” I think it's real. I've been there.

Somebody Else

Cynicism. Sometimes it sets in. Cynicism. I find myself being cynical about everything. Is it healthy to have some cynicism? I had to look up cynical to make sure I have the correct definition in my head.

 Google says cynicism is: "1. believing that people are motivated by self-interest; distrustful of human sincerity or integrity. "her cynical attitude" doubtful as to whether something will happen or whether it is worthwhile." 

So yeah, I think I'm cynical these days. I need to tone it down a bit. What's the opposite of cynicism? I'll look it up. Google says an antonym of cynicism is idealism.

 Google says idealism is: "1. the practice of forming or pursuing ideals, especially unrealistically. "the idealism of youth""

 I don't want to be idealistic. But I don't want to be cynical. Once again, the lesson in life here is balance. I don't know what the word would be that would describe a balance of cynicism and idealism. Maybe I should Google that, too. Na. I'm grateful. I'm grateful to have three beautiful, healthy kids. I'm grateful to have support from family and a great church. I'm grateful we go without things we need. I'm grateful things we want are out if reach, sometimes. It's good to be withheld everything you want. I feel bad complaining about things. I don't want to be a complainer.

I was thinking about the last blog post I made. Complainers complain, and they do nothing else. I want to be a do-er. I think it's okay to be dissatisfied with things around you, but what you do about it is the most important piece. I complained about the church I grew up in. Looking back, I don't approve of a lot of the things I saw, but that church contributed to who I am now, be that bad or good, it is what it is. I'm also more inquisitive because of that church. I ask questions about everything, even God, and I think that's good. A bit of skepticism never hurt anyone. Right?

 So, there's that. I'm cynical at times...but I'll try my best not to complain and do things to improve the things I'm dissatisfied with. That's me. I'll use my turn signal when I'm changing lanes. I'll pick up a piece of litter when I see it. I'll try my best to listen to other people and forget about what I want to say. The church I grew up in taught me the golden rule: The Golden Rule Matthew 7:12 (ESV) “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets."

Keeping Quiet is hard, cause you can't keep a secret if it never was a secret to start

I'll start this post with something bad, then I'll talk about something good.

I grew up in a home with Christian parents. They converted from...sort of Catholicism(ish) to full blown Pentecostal evangelical Christianity when I was 9. It was an abrupt change. For me, I was just going with the flow. For my parents, it must have been a radical change. I say Catholicism, but it was all cultural. Everyone in Santa Fe identified with the Catholic flavor of Christianity. We never went to church. I didn't do catechism like many of my friends in school. I was baptized, but it wasn't a closely adhered to tradition in my family.

When I was 9 that all changed. There is no half-assing  full blown Pentecostal evangelicalism. We went to church weekly. Like three times or more, weekly. There's Sunday morning, like most other Christians, then there's Sunday night, Tuesday night Royal Rangers, Wednesday night church, Thursday night youth group then the occasional "work day" on Saturday (the sabbath(lol)). Some weeks, our family was at the church every single day.

To say the least, church was a big part of our lives. It's easy to imagine I was indoctrinated. Some things I learned as truth as a young boy: Bill Clinton was evil and killed babies, the rapture was imminent and I better be prepared or God will burn me with Satan and his demons for eternity, the Bible is without error and should be interpreted literally, evolution is a lie from the pit of Hell, be afraid of gay people, guns are good, America is the best. I was taught some good things. I was taught I should help people. I was taught community is a good thing. I was taught Jesus loves me. I feel like the things I should not do were emphasized over the things I should not do, however.

Ugh, yeah. There's a lot there. Now that I've spent fifteen years away from my parents church, I've had some time to ponder what I was taught.

I pause for a minute. Why am I writing this? It's a long explanation--me breaking down my thoughts of the massacre that took place in Orlando this last weekend. I grew up being told that gay people are sinning and guns are an American right.

I've never liked guns. It was easy for me, even as a child, to understand that guns were invented to kill. I knew that killing was wrong. So, guns were bad. I still feel that way. It's not a hard argument for me. I guess someone could argue that guns were invented to defend. Okay, maybe. But, it has to stop somewhere. History began with people killing with their hands, then someone had the advantage because they picked up a rock and used it as a weapon, then someone else had an advantage because they made a spear, then someone invented the sword and could kill more effectively, finally gunpowder was discovered and guns were invented. Now, guns have evolved from a metal tube shooting debris to firing hundreds of RPM (rounds per minute). Guns are designed to kill people and with today's technology, they can kill a lot of people.

I think there might be some time when I'll need a gun. Anarchy. Zombie apocalypse. (Trump presidency?). Sure, there are bad people. Bad people have guns. Bad people can break in to your home. They might shoot you. I don't think I'll give in to that fear. Is that irresponsible on my part? Am I refusing to wear my seat belt? I don't know. I don't see Jesus packing heat if he were alive today.

I am beginning to see a Jesus that is much different than the Jesus that was taught to me as a kid. Jesus loves gay people. "Love the sinner, hate the sin." That was repeated over and over in my church growing up. I think it's bullshit. Love. That's it. I think Jesus was here to Love. Period. The end.

I don't like the Christianity I was brought up with. And the state of my country scares me a bit.

I'll finish my post here. I thought I wanted to post something good, too. I guess I wanted to write down a few of my thoughts. I've got some more things to work through. It's sort things out for myself, and I hope I can pass some good ideas down to my kids.

Okay, maybe I'm not done. I'll finish this post with something good. My daughter was born on Tuesday. She's absolutely beautiful. I love her so much. I was expecting that holding my baby daughter would be exactly the same as holding my sons, but it's not. Holding my sons for the first time was special for each one of them. Holding my daughter was something else. I'm a happy dad. Good things do exist on this Earth.

Good Things Happen in Mississippi

New Mexico is almost the worst. Thank you, Mississippi. What's wrong with Mississippi? I kind of feel bad for the state. I know what it's like to be from a place that people love to hate. I'll bet there are some great things about Mississippi that people don't know about. I'm thinking about all the things people don't know about New Mexico. What are the mysteries of Mississippi?

I know Mississippi gets tons of rain. I'll bet they get some of the most rain out if any state in the continental United Stares. I'm not going to check my suspicion. But, I'm willing to bet they're in the top five for rainiest states. With rain comes trees, grass and vegetation. They're also low in latitude. That means it doesn't get very cold and plants have more of the year to grow. I imagine beautiful flowers, huge trees and grass everywhere. Lakes, rivers, swamps, and of course, the Gulf. I'll bet Mississippi is a beautiful place.

We love to focus on the bad, though. It's well known that Mississippi is the worst. Well known? Maybe just for us in New Mexico. We fall 49th on a lot of lists. Education. Teen pregnancy. There are probably some more. I try not to pay attention to those lists. They make me sad because I know we're better than that. I'm sure some Mississippians feel the same. But, we like to focus on the bad.

I focus on the bad. I'm thinking about the news. It's all bad. The news got me down today. I especially hate hearing bad news involving kids. Just today, I read a story about a man shooting heroin while driving with a seven year child in the car. Another story about a drunk driver that killed a father, and two of his children, one 18 the other 18 months. So incredibly sad. This happened right down the street from where I grew up. I learned how to drive on those roads. It could happen to anyone.

What brings us to this? The drunk driver was a repeat DWI offender. Why did this man chose his lifestyle? What caused him to drink so much that he was barely able to speak to the officers that arrested him? And the man shooting heroin in his car... And these are just local stories. Ohio. Eight people killed.

Bad news.

I'm not talking about Mississippi anymore. I'm sure some good things happened in Mississippi today. Maybe someone went out of their way to help someone else in Mississippi. Maybe there was a meal shared in Mississippi. Some good things happened in Mississippi today, I'm sure.

Today, I read Philippians 2 again. I read it in the English Standard Version and in the New Living Translation. I think I like the ESV more for this bit.

“Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”
‭‭Philippians‬ ‭2:3-8‬ ‭ESV‬‬
http://bible.com/59/php.2.3-8.esv

When people act like Jesus it moves us. Could you imagine seeing Jesus first hand? He "emptied himself". It just blows my mind. How could someone be such a servant of others. I don't get it. I really don't.

So, good things happen. Every day. I'm still working out how to take all the bad things. I save that for another post.

Humble Mind

I'm sitting on our porch. The weather is nice. There's a slight breeze. My tummy is full. We went to Sonic and got some boneless wings. We probably shouldn't have considering our financial situation, but we did and it was worth it.

I'm trying to think of something to write and coming up short. Maybe my week that passed. Maybe my week that's upcoming. Maybe the ideas I heard in church.

Let's start with the week that passed.
I'm struggling to avoid wishing for things I've had. Things like jobs. My last teaching job at Kennedy to be exact. I was talking to Lindsey about this earlier today. I see a trend, too. When I'm in a job, I look at other situations and I wish I was somewhere else. Example: when I was at Verizon, I hated being there and I wished I could be in a higher paying position within the company or in a different job outside the company--a job that didn't involve me spending eight hours a day talking on the phone. Then, I got a job teaching social studies to seventh and eighth graders. I was excited! ... Until about October when I became overwhelmed with grading papers, learning classroom management and received two or three paychecks. I remembered that I didn't have to work at home, and I had paychecks that had larger numbers printed on them. The grass was greener. So, I applied to another tech support call center. They liked my experience and hired me. My first day was February 1. It took until February 15 for me to realize I made a bad mistake. I missed teaching. Or maybe the grass was greener. So, I applied at another school, got hired. Guess what? The grass is greener.

Crap! Well, to my credit, I'm realizing my flaw. I'm working hard at this school despite it's unusually long hours, weird classroom setup, tension between teachers, no library... See? I'm complaining. The grass is greener. I'm still soaking in my experience. I'm learning a lot here. Which brings us to this week's thoughts. I took some notes at church...

We're in Philippians 2. I need to read the chapter in detail. Maybe later today. I read a little today. Here's what I got from Nate's lesson and the chapter I read. You can have a mind of humility or one of pride. A prideful mind is self seeking, self gratifying, self justifying. Self. Self. Self. And that's natural. Everyone is trying to preserve and pleasure their self. It's primitive. Evolutionary even. What's not natural is to consider others more important. That's difficult to do...

So, what do I do? I can write and write about considering others. But what am I doing? Christ showed us the ultimate. He demonstrated exactly how to consider others more important. He was humiliated.

I'm still sorting all this out. It's hard to write coherently. I'll think more.

Rejoice

Technology... Right? I don't have technology on my mind right now. I mean I do, I'm using some tech to type what I'm saying right now. I love my Chromebook (Acer c-710), but I'm not using it. My 11 month old son, Riley, loves my Chromebook too, and he's playing with it right now. I'm typing on an iPad Air 2--not with a physical keyboard, but with the on screen keyboard, I think it's called a "virtual keyboard".

Okay, so tech is on on my mind right now. I guess tech's on my mind all the time. I'm fascinated by it. Let's switch gears...

I'm in Luke's room. Luke just turned 4 this week and he has an awesome room. Bunk beds, hot wheels, Ninja Turtles and a Cars mini couch that works perfectly as a pillow for me. It's relaxing in here.

It's good to decompress. Sundays are good days to do this. I'm preparing for a new week. A new week where I'll face some new challenges--some old challenges too. I'm trying to figure out some big things in my life. I'm trying to figure out my faith, first of all. The way I view the universe is huge. I think you have to be certain about this before you make any progress in life. At least I feel that way about me. I can't be a good father or a good husband if I'm unsure about who I am. Maybe I'll find that to be false as a get older, I don't know.

I've made some progress though. I mean, I think I have. Lindsey and I have been part of a community group for about 10 months now. Community group has been great. We share a meal then we discuss. We don't have to agree on everything, we just talk. I've needed that for a long time. I think Lindsey and I both did... We're still working on things in our lives, but it's nice to work on some of the things with people who are also working in things. It's nice to know you're not alone.

Speaking of things I'm working on--in church today, the lesson was about humility and being second (Philippians 1 &2). I'm thinking about all the people I encounter in a day. My wife. She's the most important human to me in the whole world. Can I make a confession? I'm not second. I'm in a commanding first. She's pregnant right now, carrying our daughter, Juliette. She gets tired sometimes. Sometimes she's a bit moody. I'll give her a back rub while we watch our favorite Hulu show, but I do it with resistance. I complain mostly. I'm not second. I'm mostly just a jerk. This needs to change.

Then there's my kids. I love playing with them, and yeah, sometimes I need just a little break so I can serve them the best I possibly can. But then there are times my face is buried in a screen, doing nothing. Facebook. Dumb video games. I'm not second. I'm still in a commanding first.

This week I'm going to work on being second. I'm going to love my wife. I'm going to love my kids. So yeah. That's where I am.

I'm grateful! For the past seven years I've agonized over finding purpose in a career. I don't know what it is about me. Maybe it's an American thing. Maybe it's a Hispanic thing. Maybe it's a man thing. Maybe it's just s human thing. But, since I graduated college, I've been searching for a career. Purpose wasn't the job itself, it was a paycheck. I wanted that salary that would buy the stuff I really want. That house. That truck (2016 Toyota Tacoma 4x4 TRD in black). Unlimited brewery visits. Unlimited craft coffee. Unlimited Isotopes games. You name it. Camping. Hiking. Trips. Toys for the boys. Shit! I just wanted to pay of my damn student debt!

I never found that career. I tried. And I failed feeling empty and defeated. Then I got my teaching license and got a job with Albuquerque Public Schools teaching 7th and 8th grade social studies. I was excited! -- until I got my first paycheck. I was still occupied with the money piece. So I quit. I went back to the pursuit of a profession that would pay me money and lots of it. It didn't take long for me to realize how much of an idiot I've been.

I'm not cured. I still look at others and I see the car they drive, the house they have, the title in their business card and I have some envy. But, at least now I know where I went wrong. I know where I need to focus improvement.

I think I'm done writing now. I'll leave this blog with some lyrics to a song. They sang this song in church today. I kinda love it. I also love Dustin Kensrue and Thrice. This song with as on a Modern Post record.

Here ya go...

The Modern Post "Rejoice"

"Come and stand before your Maker

Full of wonder, full of fear
Come behold His power and glory
Yet with confidence draw near

For the one who holds the heavens
And commands the stars above
Is the God who bends to bless us
With an unrelenting love

Rejoice, come and lift your hands and
Raise your voice, He is worthy of our praise
Rejoice, sing of mercies of your King
And with trembling, rejoice

We are children of the promise
The beloved of the Lord
Won with everlasting kindness
Bought with sacrificial blood

Bringing reconciliation
To a world that longs to know
The affections of a Father
Who will never let them go

Rejoice, come and lift your hands and
Raise your voice, He is worthy of our praise
Rejoice, sing of mercies of your King
And with trembling, rejoice

All our sickness, all our sorrows
Jesus carried up the hill
He has walked this path before us
He is walking with us still

Turning tragedy to triumph
Turning agony to praise
There is blessing in the battle
So take heart and stand amazed

Rejoice, when you cry to Him He hears
Your voice, He will wipe away your tears
Rejoice, in the midst of suffering
He will help you sing

Rejoice, come and lift your hands and
Raise your voice, He is worthy of our praise
Rejoice, sing of mercies of your King
And with trembling rejoice"

Sunday Afternoon

It's Sunday afternoon. It's been a lazy day, a nice day. It started out sunny and warm. But now the clouds are rolling in and the temperature has dropped 5 or so degrees Fahrenheit. That's alright with me. I'm outside right now with my 10 month old. Us New Mexicans, at least this New Mexican enjoys any weather that isn't sunny. 

I'm typing this message on my iPad right now in an app called Day One. I have a lot of gripes about s app, yet I use it all the time. It's a diary app that records your gps, weather and song you're listening to and compiles all of your entries in a calendar. You can attach one photo to each entry. I gripe because I payed $4.99 for this app and a few months later they released Day One 2. It's also a paid app, but it was a separate purchase from the app I have. I guess app developers have to make a living too. I do enjoy the app. Like I said, I use it all the time. I'm also getting better at typing on the iPad keyboard. I don't think I'm as proficient as a standard keyboard, but I'm getting better.

I know I had something more important to talk about. Maybe my job, maybe my kids, maybe religion… I'll start with my kids. They're awesome. It's incredible seeing them grow, seeing their personalities emerge. I love it.

Dang, I really don't have a ton to say right now. I think now's one of those times I need to put my device down and chill with my boy. I'll do that. K bye.