3 Things I Learned From My Facebook Break

Last month, I decided to take a break from Facbook. My life was getting busier, and when I made the call to step away from some of the more superfluous things in my life, Facebook was one of the first things to go. What followed was the first time in years that I'd been away from the social networking giant. To say the least, it was an enlightening time for me. Here’s what I discovered during my month away.

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Bless This Mess

Probably my favorite memory of the summer was the night Jeff and I drove up to Fishtown to see Dave Bazan. Jeff is a big Bazan fan and has been for some time, while I’ve never been very familiar with the former Pedro the Lion frontman’s work. But Jeffrey is my go-to guy when it comes to good music, so when he invited me to join him for the band’s Philly concert, I agreed to tag along. That night in June we drove up to the city with the windows down, maneuvering our way through the various boroughs of North Philly until we arrived at Johnny Brenda’s. Once inside, we grabbed a few beers and wiggled through the crowd for good placement just as the opening band was finishing up their set, and soon after they were followed by Bazan and his band. I only knew the handful of songs Jeff had been playing for me throughout the week, but they sounded fantastic and put on a really great show.

After multiple pleads for an encore, Bazan came back out by himself to play a few more songs for the hipster crowd, ending with "Hard to Be." And I remember those final moments of the show being curiously surreal: me standing there with about 200 or so twentysomethings in skinny jeans and plaid shirts, all of us singing together with one voice about the tragedy of the human condition…

You’ve heard the story, you know how it goes
Once upon a garden, we were lovers with no clothes
Fresh from the soil, we were beautiful and true
In control of our emotions til we ate the poisoned fruit

And now it's hard to be, hard to be
Hard to be a decent human being

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More than ever, I’ve spent this summer coming to terms with the depths of my own depravity. It seems like every time I turn around, I’m being reminded of just how twisted and broken I am. My actions, my words, my thoughts and emotions…everything within me is contaminated, selfish to the core. And these defects I possess affect everything and everyone with whom I come in contact with on a daily basis. This is further complicated by the fact that I call myself a Christian, and when you call yourself a Christian you set for yourself a certain standard of living by which other people hold you accountable to, and it becomes much harder to be open about your shortcomings than before. You eventually end up trying to hide all the imperfect things about your life, because if you don’t you will make Jesus look bad, and the weight of your iniquities becomes increasingly unbearable. 

It’s for this reason that another Bazan song, "Bless This Mess," has been my constant companion this summer. The lyrics are simple: “God bless the man who stumbles / God bless the man who falls / God bless the man who yields to temptation.” I love this because in very simple words, Dave Bazan is telling my story back to me. I am the man who stumbles. I am the man who falls. I am the man who yields to temptation. I am, by all accounts, a complete and total mess. Because like we sang that night in Fishtown, it’s hard to be a decent human being. And so I sing “Bless This Mess” because it is the only hope I have to hold onto. I am not “decent.” I do not deserve kindness, or mercy, or unfailing grace. My only hope is that the God of the universe will bless this mess, sparing me the judgment that is due me and providing me with strength to make it through the day. 

It’s true what they say about Jesus, you know: he saves. We don’t have to be good enough any more. Grace is free. And that means messes like me have the kind of hope that has substance to it. I really have been rescued. Christ really has paid my debt. And I may be a mess, but thankfully that is not the end of the story. Because grace was designed for messes like me.

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Monday Comes Around

I don't think I know anybody who likes going to work. Maybe my dad, but that guy's a nut. Everyone else I know practically despises going to work. For most of us, work is the place that keeps us from doing all the other things we want to do, like being with friends or playing outside, or sleeping. Work is filled with people we don't exactly hate but don't exactly love, either. Work is the seemingly pointless, ever-frustrating distraction from the life we really want to be living. Work is the enemy.

Right now it's Saturday morning, and a part of me is already dreading that 5 AM alarm on Monday morning, drive to the shop, and 8-hour workday before I'll be allowed to come home again. But there's no getting out of it. I have to work. I have to pay rent and buy food and put gas in my car. So work owns me to some extent. And I think that's where the dread comes from: I feel enslaved to work when really I just want to do what I like doing. It's a pride thing. I want to rule my life, and I rebel when I encounter something that stakes a claim on the things I value: my time, my relationships, my stuff.

But you know what? I'm finding that there's a certain rhythm of life I tap into by going to work. I'm finding that I appreciate my free time more than I did before work started. I'm more productive in the hours that I'm home. I cherish the time I spend with my roommates more. It seems that work is establishing a kind of cadence to things in my life, like the beat of a good song: first the beat, then a pause. First this, then that. It's order that creates structure, which in turn creates beauty. You can't have a good beat without being on tempo, which requires a proper rhythm. Likewise, living well requires a well-ordered life. First work, then rest. First this, then that. Just like a song.

I don't think I'm ever going to hear that alarm at 5 AM and not want to punch something. But I'm learning to embrace work as something that connects me to life rather than keeps me from life. Just don't ask me to say that with a smile as I'm getting in my car at the buttcrack of dawn.

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Truth and Photography

Coming into this month, I expected to be writing more, not less. With my school schedule relaxing a bit, I figured I would have all the time in the world to get cranking on some new posts. And I would have been right too, had I not stumbled into a new hobby that has been occupying much of my time recently: photography. Just before Christmas I bought a shiny new Panasonic Lumix LX-5, took it for a test run on a trip to New York City, and haven’t been able to put it down since. Can’t say I was really expecting that one.


I never really thought of myself as a photography guy. I mean, I like nice photos as much as the next guy, but it just never seemed like my gig. Plus, some of those nicer cameras look to be roughly the size of a baby koala, and carrying around something that big all day long sounds incredibly tedious to me. But after buying a smaller camera, practicing a little and discovering the magic of Adobe Lightroom, I’m beginning to come around. And I think I'm beginning to understand photography in ways I didn't before.

Fundamentally, photography is attempting to do what all good art attempts to do: tell the truth. Have you ever seen something really beautiful and tried to take a picture of it, but the picture didn’t do justice to the scene? You didn’t like the picture because it doesn’t capture the essence, the realness of the thing you were shooting. Now, have you ever seen a really amazing photograph, one that gets the color of the sky just right or catches a person laughing that really genuine kind of laugh? You like that picture because it gets the essence stuff right. We say the picture is beautiful because on some level or another, it’s true. We usually understand this on a subliminal level because it sounds kind of weird to talk about photography being all about looking for truth, but that’s what it amounts to in the end. Photography is not just about taking a picture to make sure an event is documented; it’s about trying to get the best photo that taps into the really real part of someone or something.


In just a month’s time, my eyes have been opened. If you’re looking to reconnect with God’s world and God’s people, perhaps it might do you some good to try picking up a camera and go searching for truth where it’s waiting to be found.

(Shameless Plug: if you’re a photography person, you can check out some of my stuff over on Flickr. Your comments are appreciated!)

Resolutions, Part 2: Baby Steps

Right around this time every year, I do my best Harry Houdini impression and disappear for a day. I turn off my cell phone, drive out to someplace where people don't know me, and spend the day thinking about the last year and what I'd like to accomplish in the coming year. Usually I pull out my notebook and jot down thoughts and ideas as they come to me throughout the day. I've been doing this for some time now, and I've found it to be a really helpful exercise. It gets me started on the right foot, ready to enter the new year with a purpose rather than being perpetually scatterbrained.

Last week, I came across some notes I'd made on one of my getaway day trips from a few years ago. At first it was one of those cute nostalgic moments where you laugh at the things you were thinking about in years past, things that your current, more mature self finds silly and trivial by comparison. But as I kept reading, I started to notice the same things popping up on my lists year after year. Then I realized some of those things I had written down three, four, five years ago were still on my list in 2011, and my heart sank. After all these years, I hadn't made any progress. I hadn't changed.

Change. Why is it so hard? Why does it sound so simple when we talk about it, but next to impossible once we try to live it out? The answer to this is complicated, but the short version goes like this: we develop habits based on our behavior, and our central nervous system picks up on this and engrains our habit patterns into our psyche. Once a particular action is done long enough, it integrates into the normal ebb and flow of a person's life. This is why putting aside an old habit can sometimes feel like going off drugs. In actuality, the same chemical reaction is taking place inside the brain because the psychological status quo has been upset. As a result, one cannot learn new habits without simultaneously unlearning old habits. Herein lies the tension that makes change so difficult. It is not only the addition of something new, but the subsequent subtraction of something old that creates that inner struggle we are so familiar with.

The bottom line is that real change, change that takes place in the depths of our being, takes time to cultivate. It's easy to get discouraged when we pull out last year's resolutions and feel like a failure when we didn't accomplish what we hoped to. But change usually requires more time than we think. In an instant-gratification age, this is one area where we'd do well to practice the lost art of patience. It's okay to be in process, to be taking small steps towards a goal rather than giant leaps. The idea is to keep moving forward. Thomas Merton once said that nobody wants to be a beginner, but the fact is we will never be anything but beginners for as long as we live. Perhaps our motto should be "baby steps." Maybe we'll get there someday, but for now we're just toddlers learning to walk, taking baby steps towards becoming the people we were created to be.

Resolutions, Part 1: The Me Monster

It's that time again. That time when everybody pulls out a pencil and paper and decides how they're going to remake their lives over the next 52 weeks. Considering how quickly people tend to bail on their resolutions, I'm amazed we keep doing it year after year. Maybe it's because it's so close to Christmas. Whoever decided to put New Years after Christmas was really smart, because nobody can feel all that badly about themselves when they're still tearing the price tags off their new stuff.

Resolutions themselves are kind of interesting though, don't you think? In truth, our New Years resolutions are actually more like New Life resolutions. They usually represent the changes we wish were present in our lives as ideally conceived by us. "I want to lose ten pounds"; "I want to go to the gym more often"; "I want to quit smoking." We want to cut out the bad stuff and substitute in the good stuff, thereby making us healthier, sexier, and more desirable overall. Almost every resolution made this year will be made with the intention of "building a better me."

I think I understand why we do this. I do it all the time: I'm trying to get you to like me. I want to be told that I am okay, that I am funny and good looking and intelligent, just like you do. So it makes sense to me. I'm just not convinced that these kinds of resolutions are the most helpful kind to make.

This year, I'm suggesting taking resolutions in a different direction. Rather than aim to simply be better versions of ourselves (i.e. thinner, smarter, wittier), what if we resolved to actually do something? Not that going to the gym isn't doing something, but in the end all that amounts to is checking off a box on your to-do list. Not exactly the mountaintop experience you're hoping for, is it? This is why resolutions are so often discarded within the month; nobody has any reason to stick with them. But what if we resolved to really make something happen, something that was bigger than just us? I'm talking about sponsoring a Compassion child, running in a charity race, going green for a year, volunteering at a local homeless shelter, maybe setting aside the money you normally spend at Starbucks and giving it away. See the difference in thinking? The first resolutions we looked at were all about "me." These resolutions still include "me," but without "we" they mean very little. The communal element helps to frame our actions within the larger narrative that's being created.

When we commit to something bigger than just ourselves, we align ourselves with an entire movement and increase the likelihood we'll stick to our goals. And in cases like the charity race example, we usually stand to benefit greatly from the results anyway. It just requires more effort and creativity on our part to think this way than it does to say "I want to lose weight." When it's bigger than just "me," everybody wins.

Who Cares About Advent?

Have you ever wondered why Christmas Day can seem like such a letdown sometimes? Sure, everybody does the presents thing, you get the day off from work and school, families get together to eat and watch some TV…maybe your Uncle Teddy has a little too much eggnog and passes out in the tub. But with all of the hype surrounding Christmas, with all of the effort we go put into making it a really big to-do, there are times when the day itself just seems sort of…empty. For all the hype surrounding Christmas, we’re often left trying to manufacture joy on Christmas Day, sitting in our living room surrounded by half-opened boxes of gifts and wondering along with Charlie Brown what all the fuss was about.

Why is this? Why do we get so excited around Christmas time, but feel so utterly confused when Christmas actually comes? Why do we get the sense that we’re like dogs chasing a car, unsure of what to do once we finally catch it?

The answer is simple. If we want to understand Christmas, we've got to understand the significance of Advent.

Vice Versus

“We all have our vices, don’t we?” The lady across the counter from me is moreso trying to justify her actions than speak philosophically to me as she orders her Double Chocolate Chip Frappuccino. I kind of nod along, not really sure if she wants me to respond or not. I’m new at the café so I’m still meeting the regulars, but apparently this woman comes in all the time and loooves her frappuccinos. Despite the fact that chocolate doesn’t sit well in her system, she refuses to be denied her guilty pleasure of the day. It is, as she herself pointed out, her “vice.”

Recently I heard one of my professors describe vice as “an act that’s profitable to you only and no one else.” When he said that, a light came on for me. I used to think vice was just another word for sin, something that referred to bad things you did. But this definition explains why vices are bad: they are repetitive acts of selfishness. Acts of vice move solely to satisfy you without giving others a second thought.

Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t buy yourself a Twix bar unless you’re buying enough to share with the class (unless I’m in that class…then I'm totally saying that). I’m talking about continual patterns of behavior. A vice isn’t something you do once; it’s something you go back to again and again, like the lady in the café. Essentially, our vices are the crutches we’ve constructed to deal with the pain of life. But there’s also a transaction that takes place here. While our vices make us feel better, they also eat away at us. We’re fine with it, though, because we don’t want to feel lonely or sad or powerless…not if we can help it, anyway. So we make an exchange, choosing to indulge in a fake happiness rather than endure the wait that often precedes real joy.

If nothing else, I think this understanding of vice gives us a great benchmark to measure ourselves against. As a personal experiment today, look back on the last week and ask yourself the question, “What did I do this past week that was solely intended to please me? How did those actions affect the people around me, either directly or indirectly?” Your probing probably won’t unearth anything you didn't already know. We’re not so much unaware of our vices as we are unwilling to name them for what they are. So long as our strongholds retain a sense of ambiguity, we're not responsible to change (or so we think). So naming them becomes the first step in breaking their control over our lives. True vices don't go away overnight, so we should expect some measure of struggle and probably failure along the way. But they are not insurmountable. Despite its difficulty, the recipe for change is a simple one: time, patience, and a whole lot of prayer.


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Why I Write

I’ll admit, I used to resent people who had blogs. It just seemed sort of conceited to me, you know? Like a writer’s version of Ron Burgundy: “Everyone! Come see how important I am!” At yet here I am today, posting to a blog with my name on it. I’m practically swimming in a pool of my own irony right now.

Having said that, why am I doing this? And why should you care about any of this, anyway? Fair questions, both of them. As a former blog skeptic, I'd like to try and answer them for you.


Perhaps my reasons for writing can best be summed up in this. I remember having a conversation some years ago with my friend Josiah, who is a gifted songwriter. We were talking about worrying about what people think of us, and at one point I asked him how the pressure to impress others affected his songwriting. “I mean, doesn’t that factor into why you write?” I asked. He sat thoughtfully for a moment, then replied, “...I write because it’s who I am.” I never forgot that. There are lots of reasons I love to write, but more than anything, like Josiah, I write because I am compelled. It’s something I feel in my bones, something that makes me come alive when I enter into the process. When I write, I feel like myself. It helps me sort out my thoughts and make sense of the confusion often happening around me. Simply put, it just feels like home to me.


As for the second question, I believe what I write is worth reading for one reason only: because I am human. I am like you. I hurt. I struggle. I have my good days and my bad days. And while the details of my life may vary from yours, the content remains relevant because my story is your story. We may be different, but as you will see we are not so different as you might think. And my hope is that the words I write here will encourage you and point to truth and beauty and not to self-indulgence or narcissism or vanity. The goal here, as with all good things, is love. At least, that's what I'm gunning for.


So there you have it. I don't know if I'm any less of a pretentious blogger now that I've explained myself, but that's okay. I'm not as bothered by it as I used to be. This is who I am, and hopefully these words won't simply be adding to all the meaningless babble taking up space on the internet.

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