What am I chasing? Sometimes I think certain actions and habits and daily routines are illusionary. I even wonder sometimes how much of my obbsession with music is illusionary. At times I have an insatiable drive to get new music. That nathan, as hard as it is to swallow is illusionary. If I try and get the newest stuff just to say that I already heard it, then its pretty shallow. Oh ill admit it I have done that more than once. I found myself in this desperate action while listening to Belle and Sebastian. Definately not for me. Anyways. I started thinking about my parents and how much I dont spend time with them. What if something happened to them? Would I have left something unsaid? How would that affect my life? Or what about any of my friends or relative? I know when Sarah died it changed my life drastically. Reality is seen in the moments that you realize the fragility of life. In the moments after a close friend dies. After Sarah died I wanted to pour my heart out to everyone. Not an attempt to capitalize on pity, but to be real. Just look someone right in the eye and say I want to know you and what your all about. I want to talk to you and understand you and I dont care who you are or who I think I am. Every conversation was so real that week. Living life in that conviction is beatiful. I'm already approixmately 2/5 through my life. I'm gonna die one day. Thats hard for me to type. What if I died tommorrow? Would I be researching Shakespeare in AZ? Heck no.

"Sin belongs to hell and the devil; I as a child of God, beolnd to heaven and God. It is not a question of giving up sin, but of giving up my right to myself, my natural independence and self-assertiveness, and this is where the battle has to be fought." This is heavy for me. It seems to be like eating. Fregging the entire United States is a slave to the cookie, the pizza pie and the soft drink, myself included. Those times when I do not eat it, it is like I'm giving up my right to choose that option. I know, for an absolute fact that every time I eat one of these I feel like puking 15 minutes after I leave the dining hall. I wanna puke on myself because I know my stupid descsion to eat those "dead" calories was my fault. I did it. Now I pay for my stupid mistake. And I get fat and feel more dead and less alive in getting fat. Not fat but just out of shape and extra weight that cloggs my heart up and makes me breath heavy when I run up a single story flight of stairs. Get in shape Lazy Nate. Yet its the same way with sin in my life. I just comprimise and what not without using my head. I might think it's OK to be unfriendly, but I'm feeling like a dead man while I'm doing it, my heart freezing over and getting bitter about life. Not treating others as Jesus would treat them. How hard is to talk to antoher person? "It is the things that are right and noble and good from the natuarl standpoint that keep us back from God's best. To discern that natural virtues antagonize surrender to God, is to bring our soul into the center of its greatest battle." "Jesus said "If any man will be My disciple, let him deny himself," ie, his righ tto himself, and a man has to realize Who Jesus Christ is before he will do it. Beware of refusing to go to the funeral of your own independence." Oswald Chambers

In sixth grade I dumped my girlfriend who was faithful for the girl who was "hot." Although the former bought me sixteen stone for christmas and called me everyday. Sarah was faithful. She always was there to talk. But the funny thing is I have no idea what I talked to her about for hours and hours in the 6th grade. What did we talk about? It seems that I didnt have that much to say when I was that age. I think it was Kasey who got us together in social studies class but it was perfect cause I remember seeing her laugh at Optimist park and liking everything about her at that moment. Then she was in my class and all of the sudden all of our friends are dating. I'm thinking whoa. Maybe we could date or soemthing. Then Kasey told me that Sarah kinda liked me and I told brett I liked Sarah and then we started dating. I never kissed her. I think that is what made it last so long. I just liked talking to her on the phone. When i would tlak to her on the phone, it was in my room and I was sharing my room with daniel, and he would always listen to our deep converstaions sitting by the door. I remember dancing with her at the dance. Well kinda. But no song stuck out. Maybe boyz to men. I playd trombone and sarah played clairnette. YEaa. Then we sat together at the Christmas concert. we all tapped our shoes together. I was so nervous and I got to dress up and play in front of the school. Apparently our band director told us we were fregging good. I was still scared. Yet i sat in like 7 or 9th chair. I couldnt do as well as Darren Workman. I also remember Nicole pullen sat beside me and she had glasses and frizzy hair and just kinda smiled alot. She was always wearing flower dresses and looked very nice. I always waved my hiar up and wore my sports shirts. And that blue shirt my mom bought me at goody's. Those days it didnt matter what clothes you wore, the only thing that did matter was what kind of shoes you wore. Then you were cool. But that only lasted up til 6ht grade. Then life ended as we all looked up to anyone who was able to afford American Eagle and Abercrombie and fitch. AHHH. Shoes days were better than clothes days.

IT seems when I have the holiday or friday feel I am less personal and genuine than when I am stressed out about a 5 page paper at 8pm the night before its due. I make a list of all the things i want to do with my free time and I feel myself walking right past people and not caring about them whatsoever or in other words I value this time sitting in front of the computer emailing people far away more than the people that exist around me. I love to write people and get mail, but sometimes I just need to exist and be mindful of what exisit around me rather than looking so much to the future. Again it all hangs on the hindge of starting my day off devoted to Christ and being mindful of him all day long. SIGH. Then I do it again and again. And look at the food im about to eat as the fulfillment I am looking for. Then stand tehre with my salad in my hand while Danny talks to me and he can see it in my eyes that I relaly want to eat this egg salad rather than stand and talk to him in the dining hall. he knows then there's the dead silence after his comment to me and its saying to him that I dont want to be talking to him I want to be eating this salad because it 2 and i havent eaten since 8. Then we walk away.......i get to eat my salad and I walk out of the cafeteria heavy but not fulfilled. Then I walk through the union and stare at the groiund so I wont make any eye contact with the people I come upon. Its my own insecurity that I get a glimpse of another person's eyes and dont requite them with a smile. Its the worst emptiness that I can so easily jump back into my own body to dodge a relationship. I come back to the room to find an old MP3 Cd. Alanis. Oh what truth this song brings me.......Thank you silence.........thank you terror........thank you disillusionment.........thank you.......The moment I jumped off of it, is the moment I touched down.............How about unabashedly bawling your eyes out..........I wanted to be in the city in this song..........i wanted to be studying abraod...........I wanted to be anywhere.........around a few..................Thank you Christ for forgivness...........what can i do with forgivness.........maybe revolutionize me life in the queitest way.........maybe come to terms with myself.......maybe shoot myself in the head like Tyler Durden..............Yet its the most beautiful thing..............I should work as a janator............Christ is great and I should lose myself............................just like John the Baptist........... Now I reach out and touch people in passing but can i take it to the next step..............and how do i continue a relationship...........even with another guy.......another brother.....teach me how to be humble.............humble.........Thank you humiliation.........thank your God for my acne in high school..........thank you God for my embarrasing moments.........and thank you God for being dumped and rejected..........thank you for this moment

Long time No see. I’ve had the best morning. This morning I got up at 6:00. Roughness I’ll tell ya what. I was meeting some guys at a church I visited for breakfast. I stood beside my dresser and considered my options. On one hand I was tired weak feeling and my bed was right beside me, and looking at my roommate sound asleep didn’t help either. Every time I wake up early I always seem to tell myself if I don’t get more sleep I’m going to fall over asleep during the day or just die. It’s ridiculous and untrue. I have run off four hours of sleep many a times. And my other optio n was that I promised those guys that I would meet them for breakfast. I have been trying to keep my word. So many times I compromise or don’t really mean what I say when I tell someone I will call them. Hold me accountable guys. So I started walking up to the church and then I started running because walking is boring. I got there and we talked for a little while. I was still kinda out so I sat there listening in daze. Life’s no fun in a daze. You gotta talk. I met a guy who named Micheal who had been abandoned when he was 12 and was homeless for years. He said he was a drug addict until he got saved. We ate eggs and all the typical things (North) Americans eat for breakfast. Eventually we started talking and the conversation turned to the argument between communism and capitalism. One of the guys is kind of a hippie and liked some of Marxist ideas but didn’t adhere to the whole idea. The other guy was about some capitalism. The contrast between the two is an interesting discussion. Communism and capitalism both have their perks but The pastor of the church was there and he empathized with both sides(because he had read both Adam Smith’s book on capitalism and Marx’s communist manifesto) and helped make it a fair discussion rather than an argument. Arguments are pointless. Discussions and dialogues are fruitful. I’ve learned that I cannot argue someone into accepting Christ. I have to listen to them. Jesus was always gentle when talking to people not yelling. He helped people understand the emptiness they had and then helped them understand. Anyways, we decided that capitalism had its greediness and communism had its godlessness and they were both man made, thus the root answer to all our problems is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, who heals the heart one individual at a time. Good stuff. So I caught a ride back to the dorm, so I could get my stuff to study. When I walked in the room it was 8:00 and my roommate was still asleep. I thought about if I had stayed in bed, how I would have missed out on this fellowship with guys and the discussion. And I wasn’t even tired at all. I was wide open. This made me think of a verse I read the other day “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death” (Proverbs 14:12) I thought that it was right for me to go back to bed and break my promise to the guys, but in reality that Christian fellowship kicked my day off in the right direction. I thought I was right, but I was wrong. And then I made the connection with sleeping and being dead. If your always sleeping your not living. Sleeping is boring. Waking up and smelling the coffee is life.

> On the way home from Sky Harbor I listened to Alisoon Krauss, the > Cranberries, and Sufjan Stevens. It would be > interesting to see a journal or what thoughts > crossed through my mind as I listened to each of > those CD's. When I listened to Alison Krauss, > hearing that live bluegrass made me want to become a > bluegrass performer who preached the gospel. > The Cranberries CD made me want to quit school and > live a counterculture Christian lifestyle, maybe > dropping out, working at burger king and being a > real working class person. And the Sufjan Stevens > Cd made me praise the Lord...........isn't it > interesting how each one influences me? You cant > say that music doesnt influence you.

I just read Flannery O'Connor's "Everything That Rises Must Converge." I've questioned this and fought with my parents but this story puts a final reality to my actions. My actions towards my parents are not. They are not what they should be. The character of Julian is me to and extreme. The sad thing is I don't know if thats me to extreme or not. The scene where he is imagianing himself totally seperate from his mother is something that is totally parallel to my thoughts at one time. I have thought the same thought. The thought that my parents are like a strangers because I'm so self righteous about my ideals and hatred of TV or whatever. This makes me question my ability to love my parents genuinely. Do I? Or do I pretend. What can I do? I must.

I'm walking around and I'm trying to be friendly but it's as if I say hello out of nervousness. But you know its real if you mean it. When someone just nods there head and says hey its much diffrent than when someone looks you in the eye with a look of life annd vitality, eye brows raised and a look of rest in their eyes its much different. Its the difference between a real hello and a obligation. Yet I dont feel comfortable walking by someone without acknoledgeing their presence. THere's an awkwardness there if you dont. It's as if I am an ant and I'm smiling from ear to ear at everyone, everyone feels my energy yet I just do it out of nervousness. Saying hello to people can also bring people in to have a great conversation and to make them feel comfortable. Why wait in line at the coffee shop and make the person beside us feel comfortable? What about when I walked through the wrong exit in the library and almost broke the detector thing? I kept walking and regreted not fixing it. I didnt even act like it happened. I continuted walking with a very nervous guilty feeling in my stomach. Who am I do walk through like nothing happened. Its as if I pretend that i meant to do that. Is America's problem the ignorance of our tendency that we did something wrong? When you stumble over a crack in the sidewalk and fall face first on the concrete then hop back up like nothing happened, is that America's greatest fear? The fear of rejection? The fear that we won't blend in well of the standards that have been set? We must be stone cold faced and only make jokes as means of communication. If this is the case, we can't pretend like we care about anyone. It seems we cant continue to ask for help or care about the next person. its as if everyone is objective from us. If we see a person in need we either a.) oh that's their problem, they havent worked hard enough in life b.) oh i can help them but only if I get some kind of compensation c.) oh if I look the oppostie direction maybe they wont realize that I saw them hurting. Its as if we have so many safeguards, psychological devices and physical language showing that our lives are so meaningful without other people and although we know other people have needs we just have to get to work and get this report done or we just have to get to class or go to bed or eat or look at the sky or ignore someone's pain or even someone existence. Im not talking about ignoring the janator who cleans my dorm or even the guy on the corner that i pretend like I dont see. im talking about the people I cosnider myself equal to. The girl who reminds you of your friend at home. The guy who has a similar taste in the way I dress but 'he just seems cocky and full of himself' The girl in my class who is walking right behind me and I know she sits across the room from me but im going to act like I didnt see her walk in the door behind me even though i held the door open yet didnt look at her. What about sitting and talking to peopel. I see Buzz walking across campus in the same direction I am walking yet I still have the urge to keep walking and not wait on him as if my conversation with sean is so important i can prtend i didnt see him. Where do I go from here? Do I write or read or do I live? Is reading escapism? Is reading something we do to escape our problems and concerns? Is reading a thing we do when just to make ourselves busy as opposed to relationship? I belive we live by not wanting to know who we are but by losing our identity and killing ourselves and relating to people. Forget who we are every day wheter that be "I am an English major" or "I am a republican" or whatever million roles we label ourselves with. This seems to put us on a gird that says "since I dress preppy, I cant relate to the kid with the black sabbath tshirt on" So if we seem to identify ourselves with clothes it would be a good idea to start wearing tshirts taht didnt have brand names on them because that way we could not be associated with one group and have the potential to connect with anybody.

Lately I've been learning how to love people and talk. I've been learning how to talk to people. It seems that I see other people so differently from myself when in reality we are all humans and are all pretty much the same we just all pretend we're so different. The beautiful thing is that Jesus teaches this and this is what God wants. Love thy neighbor. Everyone is our neighbor and there are so many days(like today) when I dont view every person I walk by a spitting image of myself. Although externally we look different we all need God's grace and the Word of God as a guide to our lives. I cant continue to pretend that I'm so differnt from people. I do have Christ who saved me but the rest of my fabricated "identity" of is mostly world influenced. Im trying to be as versitile as possible and to me that is quit trying to be somebody and just be. Realize people are around me, all the time. School is not going to define me and people are just gonna let me down and ill let them down, causing shame. Identifying with Christ is identifying with the everyone. Quit asking the question "Who am I?" and realize the meaning my life takes with Christ.