Author: Peter

Ichthus is over

Another Ichthus is behind us, all we really have to show for it is a bit of mud on our floor boards and memories we won’t remember which year they were from.

A week ago I didn’t even know if I would be going to Ichthus this year. After some plans changing (see previous post), I had some extra time this weekend. 2004 marks my fourth Ichthus and least amount of time, I was actually able to spend on the grounds. With a real job and all, most of friday was shot. Skipping a full work day really isn’t the same as skipping a couple classes and chapel.

Overall I had a good time, but no where near the fun I had while in college working the video crew. Its fun trying to sell Audio Adrenaline stuff to underage fans who have twenties burning a hole in their pocket. “I have $16, what can I get?” I did get an Audio A CD free for volunteering at the sales tent and working their table.

Now all I have to do is scrap the mud out of the washing machine!

Ichthus is a coming

Its that time of the year again. Time for Wilmore to quadruple in size and see how bad a record group of kids can smell after not showering for 3 days.

Ichthus is one of those things that every year I am more excited about then I thought I would be. Didn’t go, didn’t care, Freshman year, but now I can’t stand to pass it up. My mom was planning on coming in today, something I was excited about, but earlier this week she called and said she couldn’t find a decent flight time. A bummer, but it would have been a busy weekend for me and I would have not been able to give mom the attention she deserves. And not just because of Ichthus, I only really want to see one band anyway. I had work stuff from lunch through dinner. I was planning on weaseling my way in to Ichthus tomorrow for the 35 minutes Reliant K was scheduled to play. (Sorry about the unintentional rhyme.) With mom having to reschedule on Monday I had to find a more definitive way into Ichthus, cause there was no way I was going to sit around all weekend when everyone else is having fun. Luckily, I knew someone who still needed volunteers, I filled the last big spot in her volunteer schedule and I get a free wrist band. A win-win situation.

I actually like working more then watching the concerts. There is no way the sales tent can be nearly as fun as working on the video crew, but I’m sure it’ll be cool. Once I get there, I know I’m going to wish I was still an Asbury (check out the cool new website!) student running a camera or directing a show. That was so much fun, defiantly a highlight of my college career.

Ecclesiastes

I used to not put much weight in Ecclesiastes, I thought it was just some dude who was just angry at the world. But I did get something outa it in my most recent read. This book is good for more then just inspiring hippie songs.

Open up (or click on) Ecclesiastes and your greeted with some really encouraging sub-headers: “Wisdom Is Meaningless“, “Pleasures Are Meaningless“, “Advancement Is Meaningless“, “Riches Are Meaningless“, “Wisdom and Folly Are Meaningless“, “Toil is Meaningless” and just to summarize “Everything Is Meaningless“. Wow, that just makes me want to shoot myself now. Well its good I’ve spent so much time working on “stuff”. “Everything Is Meaningless” but not “Everything Is Meaningless”. Read those first two chapters and you might realized that some things are missing from the “meaningless” lists. Never once are relationships with people or God labeled as meaningless.

EveryTHING might be meaningless, it doesn’t matter how much stuff we have, how hard we worked or how cool people though we were. If all this stuff is meaningless, then the writer (probably King Solomon my Bible says) might be using contrast to tell us what really does matter, and I’m pretty sure he is. Too often we work our whole lives so we can get a Benz by the time we’re 40 or a nice house with a mini-movie-theater. When have you heard someone say “I want to have 5 great friends by the time I retire”? Friendships DO matter, they are not meaningless. “If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!” (4:11)

I want to be able to have fun, be honest and challenged by some really close people in my life. Who cares if I live in a mansion or a cardboard box, cause that doesn’t matter. They might be family or friends closer then family, but those are the things I’m going to remember on my death bed, not that a I got a 3.5% raise when I was 35 years old. Most importantly is my relationship to God. Who relocates when we do, is there when our family won’t talk to us and we can look forward to seeing after our death bed.

Remember, everyTHING is meaningless, but everyTHING doesn’t include everything. There are “things” that are so much more then “things” that do matter.

Sorry for the Delay

The program I use to blog with keeps screwing up the look of my site. A bit frustrating, and has made me devote my blogging time to fixing it, rather then blogging.

Its been a fun filled week, and about time for me to get a full sized blog in. I can’t believe that Easter was this week. I want to echo what Rachel and Julie said about how good of a time we had on Sunday. Its nearly inexplicable, we went to the 7 am service at church (I woke up at 5:30), then came back and had brunch (I was unhappy with how my waffles turned out), sat around and watched TV (I had seen better movies before), then went to a low scoring baseball game (I have done more exciting things in an afternoon). But, there was something about the whole day that made it sooo good . It was the kind of good, that makes me want to think we went to a theme park, watched the best movie ever, after eating waffles to die for and woke up at a comfortable 9am. We didn’t, but I have a hard time convincing myself that because those would have been my ingredients if I were trying to create a day that felt as good as Easter Sunday 2004. I can’t really explain it but Sunday had “it”.

Recent Song Purchases

Ok, so this one is a bit outa date, and you probably don’t care. But its my blog, I make the rules around here. I won’t know if you don’t read on, so don’t feel guilty.

A couple weeks ago I discovered a song called First Day of the Rest of Our Lives. It’s a cliche line that could be said about any day but some days really do feel like the first day of the rest of my life. Looking back in my journal I found that I wrote that in reflection to my first day on my first real job after college. That really did feel like the first day of the rest of my life. Beyond the title, the words of this song strike a cord in me. This song was also the first MxPx recording I purchased. The bands been around forever, and seem like the father of Christian Punk. I’ve heard their stuff off and on since high school but I’ve never owned anything of theirs.

I am not one to buy albums of music, that’s the main reason why I love the iTunes Music Store so much. I have embarrassingly few CDs, but there are some that I find have too many good songs to pass up. One night over a year ago I listened to a friend’s copy of Avril Lavigne‘s Let Go about 6 times in a row. She’s got so many good songs on there, and I already had stolen a quarter of them I had to give and any pony up the $9.99. I know she a record industry creation, sounds like crap live, and a poser but I like her stuff.

My most recent purchase was a mediocre cover of a U2 great. The only copy I could get my hands of Sanctus Real‘s rendition of Beautiful Day was a crappy MP3 that a friend downloaded for me. It sounds like it was taped off the radio with a microphone and then all the levels were jacked up. So I was very happen to find a quality version on iTunes. (I should be getting paid for how badly I’m endorsing this thing on my blog). Why do I need a track that is just “alright”. Well there’s this mix CD I’m working on and well, I just couldn’t use U2’s version again.

April Fools Day

I made it the whole day without getting a prank pulled on me! The worst thing about April Fools is you can’t believe anything anyone tells you.

I heard of this great site on the radio today: Top 100 April’s Fool’s Day Hoaxes of All Time. It lists such all time greats as Taco Bell buying the Liberty Bell, Nixon running for president in 1992, and the Left-Handed Whopper.

Why am I all of a sudden hungry?

P.S. I am thinking about applying to this cool job on the moon. Don’t tell Chad.

Proverbs

I have been reading the book of Proverbsrecently. Man that is such a cool book. Each verse is pretty much its one little segment of wisdom. It is like the Book of the Bible for those who have ADD. Anyone can pay attention for at least one verse. The real problem with Proverbs is that I pretty much want to highlight the whole thing, you can’t really highlight a whole book. If everything is highlighted then you might as well just have not highlighted any of it cause nothings going to stand out. I have highlighted some of the very very best verses. For example:

“One man gives freely, yet gains even more[.]”
– Proverbs 11:24

“He who covers over an offense promotes love, but whoever repeats the matter separates close friends.”
–Proverbs 17:9

There are so many more cool passages in there. Proverbs is like Poor Richards Almanac on steroids. Call me shallow for raving on a book we’ve all read before, but there is something about it. Its pure simplicity, “down home” advice are things we shouldn’t stray from. That’s how I like things, simple and to the point. Too often things are said complexly in the hopes that it will confuse the listener enough to convey an aura of intelligence. Which leads me to Lexmark corporate messaging, but I won’t go there. The true test of a complex message is the ability to convey it simply. And for anyone who thinks God does not have a sense of humor, He threw a couple of verses like this:

“Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife.”
–Proverbs 21:9 & 25:24

100% Cooler looking

Ohh, now I have a cool picture, and comments. It just makes the place feel more like home.

I am proud to unveil my new cooler looking Blog. Just basically got board with how the old one looked, way too plain and templatey, and I don’t mind templatey as long as it looks good. But this was not in the looking good category. I also added cool links to the left over there. I have a feeling those lists of links are going to grow to be really big. There other cool thing I’ve got now is commenting (ohhh). Feel free to post your two cents on my crappy little entries. The coolest thing that I don’t ever think will be used, is “Trackback”. Its for if you write a blog in response to one of mine. That would be cool, but I don’t have enough blogging friends to expect that to happen. Now that I spent a couple hours making things look cool around here, I hope the few of you who read this enjoy it.