Here's a story. . .

Tuesday night; me, Nate, Jon, and Mike spent the night at Ian's. It was quite fun. I am the master of all Goldeneye. I slaughtered all of them in the multi-player. They even did team matches with three of them against me and I would still win. Why? Because I am that much better. Thank you. But that is not the story, that is just me gloating. Around 3:00 a.m. I really wanted to go for a walk, so Nate and Jon came with me. We brought two wooden swords of Ian's with us just to swing around and stuff. Well, apparently someone saw us and thought we had bats or something and they called the police. So three cop cars showed up, lights on, and we all got patted down and all. Then they gave us a ride back to Ian's once they figured out that we weren't doing anything illegal or wrong. It was actually pretty funny. I was doing Reno 911 police cop imitations that I've seen on commercials for one of the officers. He just kind of looked at me funny, I don't think he got the jokes. Whatever though. Yeah, that was that.

CBLI is tommorrow. Man, I'm so stoked. It's going to be great. And I'm not just excited about how fun it is, or how I'm going to get to see all my friends, I'm really excited about what God is going to do with me this year. I've matured so much in my spiritual life and I know that God is going to use this opportunity to teach me something, or to change me in some way. I'm confident that I'm going to come back from camp closer to God then ever before. Jesus rocks. When I think about what he's done for me, I just can't worry about any of my petty problems anymore. He's just so much better than anything else.

- posted by Jonathan@ 8:36 PM

 
Everything You Are

It's the sight of your smile,
The confidence in your eyes,
The way your hair falls gently to your shoulders.
It's the sound of your laugh,
The way you look in moonlight,
That makes my hands shake when I touch your face.

It's this beating heart of mine
That I give to you.
Carry it around your neck, close to your own heart.
It's this voice in my head
That sings your name at night,
Keeping me awake, when all I want to do is dream of you.

I'm just like any other boy,
who's fallen for a girl. . .

But I never thought I'd fall so hard,
But I've never met anyone like you before.
I thought it'd hurt to hit the ground,
But it's so much more beautiful, like you.

It's this tear in my eye
That I shed for you.
All I ask is to feel your warmth.
It's the way you speak,
Everything you are,
That's made me fall so hard for you.

And I never thought I'd fall so hard,
But I've never met anyone like you before.
I thought it'd hurt to hit the ground,
But it's so much more beautiful, like you.

You make me forget myself sometimes.
I'd let my guard down just to let you in. . .
Just to let me in.

I never thought I'd be the boy,
Who fell for the girl. . .
But that was before I met you.

- posted by Jonathan@ 10:40 PM

 
The Master Speed

No speed of wind or water rushing by
But you have a speed far greater. You can climb
Back up a stream of radiance to the sky,
And back through history up the stream of time.
And you were given this swiftness, not for haste,
Nor chiefly that you may go where you will,
But in the rush of everything to waste,
That you may have the power of standing still--
Off any still or moving thing you say.
Two such as you with such a master speed
Cannot be parted nor be swept away
From one another once you are agreed
That life is only life forevermore
Together wing to wing and oar to oar.

- Robert Frost

- posted by Jonathan@ 1:53 PM

 
I don't know. I'm lost. I don't even know how to put this into words without just coming out and saying it. It's better this way though.

It's confusing to me too.

- posted by Jonathan@ 12:56 AM

 
Zach's surprise birthday party was today. It was a surprise. It was a lot of fun. Stealing Harvard is a pretty funny movie too. I don't know what else to say on that. Me and Hetzel pitched in together to buy Zach a cd. Sigur Ros. Yeah, they rock. I'm done with that.

- posted by Jonathan@ 12:51 AM

 
By request, here's a few of my favorites by Robert Frost.

My November Guest

My Sorrow, when she's here with me
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are as beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.

Her pleasure will not let mt stay.
She talks an I am faint to list:
She's glad the birds have gone away,
She's glad her simple worsted grey
Is silver now with clinging mist.

The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reasons why.

Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
And they are better for her praise.

Wind and Window Flower

Lover's, forget your love,
And list to the love of these.
She a window flower,
And he a winter breeze.

When the frosty window veil
Was melted down at noon,
And the cage'd yellow bird
Hung over her in tune,

He marked her through the pane
He could not help but mark,
And only passed her by,
To come again at dark.

He was a winter wind,
Concerned with ice and snow,
Dead weeds and unmated birds,
And little of love could he know.

But he sighed upon the sill,
He gave the sash a shake,
As witness all within
Who lay that night awake.

Perchance he half prevailed
To win her for the flight
From firelit looking-glass
And warm stove-window light.

But the flower leaned aside
And thought of naught to say,
And morning found the breeze
A hundered miles away.

- posted by Jonathan@ 2:50 PM

 
I'm at Zach's house. I came over here around 10:30. We've just been hanging out. Frozen pizza, Mountain Dew, rented videos; that whole jazz. Playing some guitar, talking about people behind their backs, you know how it goes. By the by, did you know that Zach is dating Good Times a.k.a Vanessa Jahns? Yeah, because I just found out today too. Yeah, but I'm going to bed now.

- posted by Jonathan@ 2:37 AM

 
Tetélestai

I.
How shall we praise the magnificence of the dead,
The great man humbled, the haughty brought to dust?
Is there a horn we should not blow as proudly
For the meanest of us all, who creeps his days,
Guarding his heart from blows, to die obscurly?
I am no king, have laid no kingdoms waste,
Taken no princes captive, led no triumphs
Of weeping women through long walls of trumpets;
Say rather, I am no one, or an atom;
Say rather, two great gods, in a vault of starlight,
Play ponderingly at chess, and at the game's end
One of the pieces, shaken, falls to the floor
And runs to the darkest corner, and that piece
Forgotten there, left motionless, is I . . .
Say that I have no name, no gifts, no power,
Am only one of millions, mostly silent;
One who came with eyes and hands and a heart,
Looked on beauty, and loved it, and then left it.
Say that the fates of time and space obscured me,
Led me a thousand ways to pain, bemused me,
Wrapped me in ugliness; and like great spiders
Dispatched me at their leisure . . . Well, what then?
Should I not hear, as I lie down in dust,
The horns of glory blowing above my burial?

II.
Morning and evening opened and closed above me:
Houses were built above me; trees let fall
Yellowing leaves upon me, hands of ghosts;
Rain has showered its arrows of silver upon me
Seeking my heart; winds have roared and tossed me;
Music in long blue waves of sound has borne me
A helpless weed to shores of unthought silence;
Time, above me, within me, crashed its gongs
Of terrible warning, sifting the dust of death;
And here I lie. Blow now your horns of glory
Harshly over my flesh, you trees, you waters!
You stars and suns, Canopus, Deneb, Rigel,
Let me, as I lie down, here in this dust,
Hear far off, your whispered salutation!
Roar now above my decaying flesh, you winds,
Whirl out your earth-scents over this body, tell me
Of ferns and stagnant pools, wild roses, hillsides!
Annoint me, rain, let crash your silver arrows
On this hard flesh! I am the one who named you,
I lived in you, and now I die in you.
I your son, your daughter, treader of music,
Lie broken, conquered . . . Let me not fall in silence.

III.
I, the restless one; the circler of circles;
Herdsman and roper of stars, who could not capture
The secret of self; I who was a tyrant to weaklings,
Striker of children; destroyer of women; corrupter
Of innocnt dreamers, and laughter at beauty; I,
Too easily brought to tears and weakness by music,
Baffled and broken by love, the helpless beholder
Of the war in my heart of desire, the struggle
Of hatred with love, terror with hunger; I
Who laughed without knowing the cause of my laughter, who grew
Without wishing to grow, a servant to my own body;
Loved without reason the laughter and flesh of a woman,
Enduring such torments to fin her! I who at last
Grow weaker, struggle more feebly, relent in my purpose,
Choose for my triumph an easier end, look backward
At earlier conquest; or, caught in the web, cry out
In a sudden and empty despair, 'Tesélestai!'
Pity me, now! I, who was arrogant, beg you!
Tell me, as I lie down, that I was courageous.
Blow your horns of victory now, as I reel and am vanquished.
Shatter the sky with trumpets above my grave.

IV.
. . . Look! this flesh how it crumbles to dust and is blown!
These bones, how they grind in the grantite of frost and are nothing!
This skull, how it yawns for a flicker of time in the darkness,
Yet laughs not and sees not! It is crushed by a hammer of sunlight,
And the hands are destroyed . . . Press down through the leaves of jasmine,
Dig through the interlaced roots--nevermore will you find me;
I was no better than dust, yet you cannot replace me . . .
Take the soft dust in you hand--does it stir: does it sing?
Has it lips and a heart? Does it open its eyes to the sun?
Does it run, does it dream, does it burn with a secret, or tremble
In terror of death? Or ache with tremendous decisions? . . .
Listen! . . . It says: 'I lean by the river. The willows
Are yellowed with bud. White clouds roar up from the south
And darken the ripples; but they cannot darken my heart,
Nor the face like a star in my heart . . . Rain falls on the water
And it pelts it, and rings it with silver. The willow trees glisten,
The sparrows chirp under the eaves; but the face in my heart
Us a secret of music . . . I wait in the rain and am silent.'
Listen again! . . . It says: 'I have worked, I am tired,
The pencil dulls in my hand: I see through the window
Walls upon walls of windows with faces behind them,
Smoke floating up to the sky, an acension of sea-gulls.
I am tired. I have struggled in vain, my decision was fruitless,
Why then do I wait? with darkness, so easy, at hand! . . .
But tommorrow, perhaps . . . I will wait and endure till tomorrow!' . . .
Or again: 'It is dark. The decision is made. I am vanquished
By terror of life. The walls mount slowly about me
In coldness. I had not the courage. I was forsaken.
I cried out, was answered by silence . . . Tetélestai! . . .'

V.
Hear how it babbles!--Blow the dust out of your hand,
With its voices and visions, tread on it, forget it, turn homeward
With dreams in your brain . . . This, then, is the humble, the nameless,--
The lover, the husband and father, the struggler with shadows,
The one who went down under shoutings of chaos, the weakling
Who cried his 'forsaken!' like Christ on the darkening hilltop! . . .
This, then, is the one who implores, as he dwindles to scilence,
A fanfare of glory . . . And which of us dares to deny him?

- Conrad Aiken

- posted by Jonathan@ 9:03 PM

 
I was really bored all afternoon. So I called Emily and she was bored too, so I went and picked her up and we kind of watched a movie. But really we just talked and missed the whole thing. But then she left and I was bored again. Time passed and here I am.

- posted by Jonathan@ 8:27 PM

 
Just remember this before you read on: I do not swear. I do not condone cussing. I think in most every case it is wrong, even if it might not quite be sinning. I also know though how it feels to not be able to express yourself without some sort of explicit. I also don't believe in editing art. I think that cheapens it and takes away from the meaning and message. The following is a song that contains some explicit language. If you are offended by this, do not read on.

If Winter Ends

I dreamt of a fever
One that would cure me of this cold, winter set heart
With heat to melt these frozen tears
And burned with reasons as to carry on
Into these twisted months I plunge without a light to follow
But I swear that I would follow anything
If it would just get me out of here
And so you get six months to adapt
And then you get two more to leave town
In the event that we do adapt, we still might not want you around
And I fell for the promise of a life with a purpose
But I know that's impossible now
And so I drink to stay warm
And to kill selected memories
Because I just can’t think anymore about that or about her tonight
I give myself three days to feel better
Or I swear I'm driving off a fucking cliff
Because if I can’t make myself feel better
Then how can I expect anyone else to give a shit?
And I scream for the sunlight
Or a car to take me anywhere
Just get me past this dead and eternal snow
Because I swear that I'm dying
Slowly but it's happening
So if there is a perfect spring that’s waiting somewhere
Just take me there and lie to me and say,
"It’s going to be alright,
It's going to be alright.
Yeah, you worry too much kid.
It's going to be alright."

- Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes

- posted by Jonathan@ 1:28 AM

 
Last night was movie night at Ian's. Me, Mike, and Ian. We ended up only watching Hook though. There were many complications. And for the record: Ryan Erikson sucks. But anyways, hopefully tonight will be Lord of the Rings: Special Edition. Yeah! I know you are all jealous.

Church was cool today. Nothing really special, God is just cool.

- posted by Jonathan@ 1:49 PM

 
I never really understood how someone could cry themselves to sleep. I guess I figured it out last night.

- posted by Jonathan@ 2:29 PM

 
Heavy stuff. I feel tired. There's just too much to handle, to much to think about. Sometimes, when things are the worst, all you have to do is let God take over. You just have to stop relying on yourself and your own understanding. You just have to have faith, and believe. And sometimes you're stupid like me and you keep God out.

I feel so distant. I feel very empty and alone right now. I always do this to myself. It's so silly. I just don't feel like myself. I have this song that plays in my head. But it's written with the very blood that surges through my veins. The very beating of my feeble heart. It's instrumentation is composed of frowning face and of furrowed brow. It's this pulsing in my ears, and the ache in my heart. And those moments when I would like nothing better than to rip my heart from my chest so I could see and feel my own blood, and have that satisfaction. I could taste it again, and once more have that release. I long for a release. I close my eyes, and I can envision it. Then at least the gaping hole I feel would have a cause. Cause and effect. And I could rip out my own throat too. It's never done me any good. It's never given me a voice loud enough to be heard in my own head. Close your eyes. Just close your eyes. Nothing seems as bad in the daylight.

- posted by Jonathan@ 2:11 AM

 
C-stone

- I got kicked in the face at the Underoath show!

- I made Extol angry but then it turned out that "Peter was only joking."

- I saw an awesome band named Emery, and they were completely great.

- I took lots of pictures.

- I finally saw Zao live!

- I watched indie films at a film fest.

- I went raving.

- I got backstage after the Insyderz show.

- I got to see lots of my friends, and spend time with them.

- I saw an improv band called Reels of White Flow Softly, and they blew me away.

- I almost cried at the Cool Hand Luke show.

- I preformed my metal stylings on my harmonica to a larger crowd then some of the bands played for.

- I met Jesse Eubanks, which in turn allowed me to meet Kat Jones. . . and I am now in love. . .

- I bought some cool t-shirts.

- I saw too many awesome bands to even remember.

- I'm done, there was way more, but it's hard to remember it all. And on an unrelated note: they will know we are Christians by our love for one another. Remember that.

- posted by Jonathan@ 10:56 PM

 
Hi kids! Lovely day right? No, it's raining. I haven't read Hetzel's update yet, but he better not have told any of my stories or he will get metal thrashed by me and my harmonica. . . Extol style. Ha, yeah, but anyways, I'm busy so my C-stone update will be coming soon. Why am I busy? I have a show to prepare for tonight. Check BTAK's news blog for details. Much love.

- posted by Jonathan@ 12:39 PM