feelin good

ok so in honour of my feeling so good right now, i decided to do another top 5 list today of my top 5 favorite feel good songs. these are songs that whether it's because of a funky beat, great lyrics, a combination of the 2 or for any other reason always manage to lift my mood and just make me feel a little better, even when i already feel great...so here we go:

MY TOP 5 FEEL GOOD SONGS

1. Move Along - All American Rejects
-an anthem about getting through the rough spots in life...pretty appropriate

2. Hanasakjijii(Four: A Great wind, more ash) - Anathallo
-great song with multiple "movements" of sorts

3. Steal my kisses - Ben Harper
-just can't but groove to this tune

4. 3X5 - John Mayer
-an upligting song about seeing the beauty in the world as well as wishing to be with the one he loves

5. Mother i just can't get enough - New Radicals
-musically possibly one of the funnest songs ever

Honorable mentions: Don't worry be happy - Bob Marley; Mrs. Potter's Lullabye - Counting Crows; Ants Marching - Dave Matthews Band; It Don't Matter - Donavon Frankenreiter; 65 Mustang - Five for Fighting; Inches and Falling - The Format; To the Dogs or Whoever - Josh Ritter(especially live); Sunshine - Matt Costa; New Shoes - Paolo Nutini; Love Song - Sara Bareilles; To be Surprised - Sondre Lerche; Super Sexy Woman - Sufjan Stevens

So there you have it...i realize that having all these honorable mentions almost defeats the purpose of having a top 5 list, but i can't help it, there's just so many good songs out there...and i left a bunch out too..oh well. that's my list for the day. take it or leave it.

surprise!

ok time to see who actually checks my blog regularly(or everyday as pete claims) and see how long it takes for people to realize i've updated again...
i don't really have anything in particular i want to blog about today, i'm just really bored cause i've been off work for the last couple weeks and it gets old pretty fast, so here i am and we'll see where it goes. k so first off, i went back and read all my previous blogs and it was pretty fun seeing what i was on about at different times in the last few years...i guess sports were still as big a deal to me then as they are now. and i had kinda forgotten about a couple of those serious posts...not in the sense that i forgot about those topics in general because i haven't but just in the sense that i forgot i had blogged about them and it was interesting to see what i had written as well as encouraging to me to do more of that.
i guess i want to apologize and explain a little of my life over the past several months. i don't know if anyone reading this feels that it's neccessary for me to apologize but i sort of do. i say this because over the last several months (up until february ish at least) i had been slowly cutting myself off from the world around me. i was becoming a bit of a shut in at home and just didn't want much to do with people in general(with the exception of christmas time when i was really happy to be home and to spend some time with my family). this would probably be much more noticeable if you were here in calgary and saw me regularly (or didn't as the case became). i know that i have never been great at communicating with people and even when in the same city there were times when i didn't see anybody for extended periods of time, but this was different. this time was a total cutoff and it was from just about everybody in my life. and it is for that reason i want to apologize to you. whether you noticed it or not, it was a problem and i hope that it's something i have been correcting/will continue to correct in the near future.
i also want to fill you in a little bit on my life over those past few months to maybe give you an idea of what i was going through and why i was feeling and acting like that.
and it all starts with a girl. now i want to make absolutely clear that i am not saying anything bad about her. she is a good girl and who she is as a person had little to nothing to do with my recent struggles, but rather just the situation i got myself into with her. i do not wish in any way to slander her. you are probably all familiar with her and with the situation to a degree but i want to explain a little more fully because until recently i don't believe i had shared some of this with you guys and that's part of the problem.
so the basic situation was that i dated this girl for several months before she broke up with me. over time we mended our relationship to the point that we were pretty good friends again. and after a few months the possibility of a relationship resurfaced, and then went away, and then resurfaced, and then went away. for the most part this was all based on her feelings at any particular time. i had made up my mind that i liked her and that was a feeling she was never able to hold onto for any length of time. and so i was led on a journey back and forth, up and down, and all over trying to just be patient and wait for her. i believe all of you are familiar with that whole situation to some degree or another.
what you may not have known and what i didn't really see just about from the beginning(that is the 2nd beginning after we had broken up and she brought the issue up once more) was the effect that the whole situation was having on my life. again i am not blaming the girl, but rather the situation i put myself into and how i then dealt with it. over time, i was slowly starting to shut down. that whole situation was acting like a cancer inside of me, slowly shutting me down in most areas of my life. i started to lose interest in church and my spiritual life in general, to the point of just about not going to church at all from december through at least part of february(which is something i've never done before, generally never missing more than a week or two at a time and usually for a reason). it wasn't like i lost my faith, but i just didn't care about it. i started to hang out with my friends less and less and by the last few weeks i was spending virtually every moment i wasn't at work just sitting at home keeping to myself as much as possible. now as quiet as i am and as much as i'm probably a little more introverted than extroverted(depending how you define it) i LOVE being with people and just spending time with friends no matter what we are doing, so for me to go hermit like i did was actually a big deal. i also stopped playing guitar for a long period of time(i'm not very good but i like to mess around), i had a very bad attitude and personality going for a couple months, especially at work, and life in general just decomposed a bit for me. by the end of this time i was very apathetic and didn't want anything to do with anyone around me. i was able to put on a face for those around me to make it look like i was fine, but inside i was anything but.
so starting around septemberish of last year that is how my life was devolving. i don't know if it's fair for me to put the entire blame on this one situation, there were probably other factors at work as well, but i believe that the situation with this girl and the way i let myself get bounced around in it, was at least the catalyst to my problems and probably contributed more than anything else.
it took me a long time to realize what was happening to me. maybe partially because it was a slow degenerative problem and so was harder to see it at work, and maybe partially because i was so involved in the situation that it was hard to see outside of it to see what was actually happening. i can't really place my finger on when it happened or what it was that clued me in, but sometime in february of this year, it was like my eyes were just opened and i was suddenly able to see what had been happening to me and the condition of my life. i knew that i was in a terrible place in life and that i had to change things in a big way. i started to go back to church and to pick up my bible more and to make an effort to spend some time with God, but that didn't feel like it was enough. i knew that i had to change some other things in my life as well. about the same time that i had this eye opening experience(and maybe because of it?) i began to realize that the feelings i had once had for this girl, those feelings that kept me hanging on to this bad situation just weren't there anymore. i didn't feel anything for her at all and i wonder now how long that had been the case and i just told myself otherwise. so i decided that i would have to talk to her and tell her how i felt and tell her that i was done with her and that whole situation for good. i felt really good about this for a couple reasons: one because it was the first time in the better part of 2 years that a decision about our relationship was being made by me which gave me a confidence and a strange joy that i didn't expect to feel, and two because i had finally recognized just how bad this situation had been for me and i was taking steps to get myself out of it, which was getting rid of a huge burden in my life.
it was a strange coincidence of timing(or maybe it wasn't at all...), but about a week or so after i ended things with this other girl and was making all of these changes in my life, another girl randomly came back into my life(we had known each other from school but i had not heard anything from her in 2 or 3 years). she got my number from pete and we started to hang out. i wasn't sure what make of it at first, but as the next several weeks went by, she began to make her intentions more and more clear to me(though without actually saying anything as she was waiting for me to say anything). and as time went on i began to realize just how great this girl was and how much i was falling for her. i took some extra time to really examine myself and my situation(considering what i was coming out of) and spent alot of time praying about it to see if this was something that i was ready for(i knew for a week or two that it was something i wanted). and as of this wednesday i asked her out and i am reminded constantly of how great she is and i feel really comfortable, and really good about this relationship.
on top of those changes, i decided to quit my job at the warehouse i was working at and i would try to go back and work with phantom screens for the summer(which i am doing...just waiting for my start date), and i made myself pick up my guitar again and i rediscovered to joy i get in messing around on it. all in all i basically just tried to give myself a fresh new start on life in as many areas of my life as i could. i wouldn't say that this has been an overnight success for me...but the more time that has gone by, and especially the last few weeks in april, the better and better i have felt. i really feel like i am in a good space in my life right now and i am excited about the future and about what every day holds for me.
i hope that gives you all an insight into my life recently, and again, i'm sorry for the way i have been until recently(whether you noticed or not). talking specifically to my brothers - including pete of course - you all mean the world to me and feel like i have been holding back from you and not letting you into my life like i should have been. talking about stuff like this or what darrell brought up recently and just about our lives in general is so important, and i don't want to leave you guys out in the dark anymore. and i want you all to know that i love you all so very much because though i know you know it, it just doesn't get said enough.

on a related note to all of this and to the topic breached first(though far from exclusively) by darrell, i've been reading through 1 and 2 Timothy recently, and in those books paul states again and again that as men(and women) of God we must turn away from the evil in this world and pursue holy lives in God.
he says, starting in 2 Timothy 2:19 "Nevertheless, God's solid foundation stands firm, sealed with this inscription: "The Lord knows those who are his" and "Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness." In a large house there are articles not only of Gold and Silver, but also of wood and clay; some are used for noble purposes, some for ignoble. If a man cleanses himself from the latter, he will be an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the master and prepared to do any good work. Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord with a pure heart..."
it is my hope that we can turn from the evils in our world and pursue holiness and i hope that is something that we can help each other with.

so that's my piece for now...i don't know how often i'll be blogging(if my track record is anything to go by probly not much) but this one was pretty heavy and i think i'll try to do something a little more light spirited sometime soon...especially while i'm off work and bored to tears...aight. later.

here's a few of the monster truck pics from last week for anyone interested...if you want more, i can maybe post a few more or put some on cd for you or something like that. peace.

k so in my last blog(not the reverend one, the one before) i mentioned that there were more thoughts rattling around upstairs...i'm going to attempt now to spew them out of my head onto this computer screen...i predict this will take me several hours cause it always takes me a long time to be able to take what's in my mind and actually present it so it makes sense, but i'm gonna do it anyways.
ok so here's the rub...and this first part may be where i go wrong and the rest of this may be a partial waste of time but whatever...as i have always kind of understood things and how it seems to me when i read the passage, in genesis one generally understands that man was created without knowledge of good and evil. we understand this because God plants the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden of eden and commands adam and eve not to eat of it, and it seems that it is not until they do actually eat of it that adam and eve's eyes are opened to "good and evil". now god creates man with free will, that is, the ability and freedom to make our own choices. and god gives man one command. actually let me change that. God gives man many commands(such as name the animals, be fruitful and multiply, etc.) but god gives man one command that differs from the rest, that being not to eat of the two trees, the tree of life and the tree of good and evil.
k...so the commands that god gives to man are for the most part hardly even seen as commands..."they're really more guidelines". God is just kind of explaining to mankind his role in god's created world or something like that. there is no reason for man at this point to have any reason to question god. it'd be like this guy made me, he's pretty righteous and i like him...i have no idea what i'm doing here, so this guy says do this, sure i'll do it why the heck not? but then there's this one other command that god gives which is different...rather than god saying "DO this" he suddenly says "DO NOT do this". here flags go up in my mind. man is suddenly faced with the possibility of a choice.
k hopefully i haven't lost you yet cause i'm really not sure how this is coming accross. not always the most eloquent in expressing my theological and/or philosophical thoughts.

now if you skip ahead a bit, you see that in the end man does make the choice to eat of the tree of good and evil, breaking God's command(incidently just a little rabbit trail...i wonder how things would have been different if man had eaten from the tree of life instead of the tree of good and evil?). Now it is at this point that God punishes man for breaking his command. so then i am led to believe that God considers this action by man to be a sin; for it to have been a 'wrong' choice. this doesn't add up to me though, becuase until man actually eats of the tree of good and evil, man had no real knowledge of good and evil, right and wrong...so how could god punish man for doing something wrong when man doesn't really even understand 'wrong'? this doesn't seem like it would be a just thing of God to do and i've always been taught that God is a just God.
this presents another problem to me. if man really had no knowledge of good and evil, what kind of free will could he really have? what is the point of having the freedom to make a choice when you have no idea what the consequences will be? and we're not talking like there's consequences you just miss or forget or something like that...we're talking like there's consequences that you simply are not able to understand...it's just not possible. it's like god created man with the freedom to make his own choices, and then took that freedom away by not giving him the knowledge of what making a choice is really about. when eve ate of the apple, i don't know that it's so straightforward as her making a choice. the snake in the garden told er to eat. he told her that she would not die as God had told her, but that she would be enlightened. now at this point eve did not understand good and evil, so it could be argued that all she was doing was listening to what she was told, same as she and adam had been doing when god told them to do something. so was it really much of a choice? and was it really 'wrong'? and even if adam and eve had such knowledge and knew what they were doing, if god didn't want adam and eve to eat of those trees, then why would he put them into a position where that would be a temptation for them. again this seems like setting them up to fail and it just seems off somehow...

also another side note...anyone who believes that death entered this world when god cursed man following the original sin simply can't be correct...death must have existed previous to this. this is proven by the very existence of the tree of life in the garden. God states "he must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever." it is pretty clear from this that mankind was not at all imortal but would die. unless he ate from the tree of life in which case he would indeed live forever. there is also the possibility that maybe death was introduced in a different manner after the original sin or maybe it's interpreted in some other way that i'm missing, that's very possible. either way this isn't as big an issue in my world...i don't even know if people really believe that mankind was imortal previous to the original sin, but it seems an idea that i've heard before, i dunno. i just thought of it very briefly while i was thinking about all this other stuff so i figured why not throw that out there too while i'm at it?

anyhoo, i've done as well as i can for right now trying to explain my thinking process here. this isn't about doubt, this isn't about questioning the legitimacy of the bible or even god or anything like that. like i said in my previous blog this is only about exploration, about seeking to know my god, to understand him as much as i can that i can grow in my relationship with him. i haven't gotten so far as to make much sense of what it all means, what it may say about God yet, but this is part of that process. and i'd love to hear any feedback that can help me to either make sense of it or to point out my foibles and errors in understanding/interpretation, etc. cause that can only help not hinder. so ya, i'm out. peace.

reverendum

i propose a vote that reverend chris seperate from the townships of viking and tofield and move to calgary alberta immediately.

all in favour: AY! all opposedMotion carries!

the reverendum has passed with a unanumous vote! looks like chris had better move here and join us!!

flawed design?

i went to bed at 2 in the morning and so far i'm batting a solid 0 for 180 in the minutes that i have been trying to sleep, i'm actually more awake now than when i went to bed 3 hours ago, and i have to leave in 3 hours to pick someone up from the airport, so i've decided to just skip the whole sleep thing for tonight. so here i am. while i was exhausting myself to relax and go to sleep, i was thinking about some stuff. i'ma try to lay it out a little bit. (pause for laughter at the show scrubs here....k let's move on

was man set up to fail from the get go? being given free will, i'm not sure that man could have not sinned. it seems that all eve needed was a little temptation from the snake and it was over. i can't help but think that god surely must have known that humans would fail to keep his command forever, he created us after all...who could know us any better than him. but if this is so, then why would god put man in a situation where he likely knew he would fail? it's like God said "i'm gonna make this guy who i know will sin, but i'll try to help him avoid it as long as possible...i'll put him in this righteous garden full of everything good, i won't fill him in on good and evil so he won't really know what's what, and i'll give him one simple command to obey, let's see how long this takes..." so much is made of how mankind is "fallen" since the original sin of adam and eve, but did we really stand a chance? i submit that we may not have! or we may have...i'm not really sure to be honest.

the point of all this is just to look at things from a bit of a different perspective... what kind of personal relationship is it if you're not trying to know and understand the other person just a little more all the time, and that's what i want my relationship with god to look like. this is something i had never really thought about before, but as i lay sleepless in bed tonight it oocured to me that though we are created in god's image, does that mean we are created perfectly? or are we created perfectly as in god created man exactly the way he wanted him "flaws" and all? but why would god create man to be in relationship with him, knowing that man would screw it up, and quickly. i haven't made much of it for myself yet and this is just a little prologue that has stirred up more thoughts that have yet to fully sort themselves out and i think are much harder to understand in my own mind so far, but don't even worry about it, i'll get there.


now for those of you who have been waiting endlessly and for some really hard to understand reason for me to blog again...i hope you're happy. and i think you can expect a couple more to follow in the very near future(as in maybe later today) while i'm trying to work this stuff out, but then it'll probably be another year or so before i blog again, so i wouldn't get too excited about it.

Top 5...

The following list is a list of the 5 songs that i have been introduced to over the course of this school year(since september) that i like the most (with #1 being the favorite). i will list the artist, followed by the song title and a brief dialogue of why i picked it. but first i'll list a couple of honorable mentions that just didn't quite make it.

honorable mentions:
David Grey:Everytime - A good tune from one of my favorite new artists
Pink Floyd: Wish you were here - the title track from one of their cds, this is an old song, but one i had never heard until recently and i quite enjoyed it.

Top 5 new songs:
#5. Rise Against: Swing life away - i just plain and simply find this to be a good catchy tune. well written music with a few enjoyable lyrics made this an instant hit in my books.
#4. KT Tunstall: Black Horse and Cherry Tree - i came accross the music video of this song purely by chance when i briefly had my internet cable hooked up to my TV(giving me about 10 cable channells including much more music). i have been on a kick recently of finding songs that i classify as a good walking song - that is, a song that is just fitting to listen to loudly as you walk down the street...kind of the equivalent of a good cruising song when driving, only minus the car. This song instantly fit this category for me as it has a very solid beat and is a pretty groovy tune.
#3. The Arcade Fire: Neighbourhood #3 (Power out) - This band was introduced to me earlier this year, and i have found that they have a different sort of sound than any other group i have ever really heard before. Most of the songs i have heard i have liked and i think thus far this has been my favorite...it is one of the more upbeat songs of theirs and i find the lyrics to be very interesting and challenging (though i admit i am still deciphering them a bit)
#2. Donavon Frankenreiter: Butterfly - This artist shares a very similar sound to Jack Johnson whom i enjoy quite a bit. upon listening to his cd briefly, this is the song that caught my attention the most. it's nice and light but not slow, and so far it is the kind of song i can listen to no matter what my mood may be.
#1. David Grey: Please Forgive Me - recommended to me by a friend, i quickly came to enjoy David Grey quite alot, especially the musical side of his songs. lyrically i could take or leave many of the songs, but i enjoy most of the music alot. with this song, however, i found that the music and lyrics were both there. i guess this probably would count for the "cheesy love song" selection of this group of songs, but i'm most ok with that. i didn't find the lyrics too sappy (i actually thought they were far better than most "love songs" that i have heard), and the music that the lyrics have been put to is absolutely fantastic. Not only does this song rank in my top 5 new songs, but i would place it very high in an overall favorites ranking.

So there it is for tonight...feedback on my choices? do you have any new favorites? random comments having nothing to do with any of this? bring it on!

P.S.

our team got jipped with the all-conference selections...we didn't get a single selection out of the 10 players named. one of our players, jonny L. was the third leading scorer in the league and he got nothing though he clearly deserved it. even St. Mary's, who didn't win a game and was the only team who failed to make the play-offs got 2 selections to the team...and we got nothing...that made me mad. at least we showed them what a bunch of "non-all stars" can do. so ha!

we are the champions...of the world!!!

last night, the soccer season that was 2005-2006 came to an end...in sweet sweet sweet victory! about a month ago i wrote a blog about this soccer season. the basic jist of that blog was that this season had been one of the most frustrating seasons i had ever played because our team was so much better than our record of 3-5 indicated. we had lost some tough games, some games that we should have won, and we were going into the playoffs having beaten only the last place team twice (who didn't win a game all year) and rocky, who finished 3rd in the regular season in our very first game of the season. despite the poor record, i knew what our team was capable of and i had high hopes going into the play-offs. our first game was against the first place team (though in my opinion they were not the best team in the league...i mean besides us cause we were the best team in the league...i think this team was actually 3rd best). the thing about this team is that they have a well coached offensive system built around ball control and alot of movement. but once you have figured out their system, it is really not that hard to defend against and once it's your turn to press them on offence you quickly find out that their defence is very shaky. great goaltending made their D seem better than it was. game time came and on the very first shift we went out there and popped one right in there. I read one of their players like a picture book and quickly and easily stole the ball from him and then put a ball through their defenders to my teammate jonny L who was making a run down the sideline. once he collected the ball in behind the defence it was all over(this guy was at one point a canadian junior national player and is the most skilled player on our team by far). just like that we were up on them and we didn't look back. we went into half up 2-0 and then quickly put it up to 4-0 once the second half started. in the end Prairie kind of made a game of it with the final score being 4-3, but 2 of their 3 goals should not have been goals...and don't think this is me just being whiny about it or anything, i mean they actually should not have been goals. their first goal never even went in the net. it hit the crossbar, then the post and out, but the ref called it a goal despite the fact that even a few of prairie's own players who were on the floor at the time were saying it wasn't a goal. and then their 3rd goal was a freak goal and i'm still not sure what happened. they had a guy come down the wing on a break and i was on the far post covering my guy who was hanging out back there. the ball carrier took a shot and got it past our goalie but because i happened to be right there, i was able to reach out and stop the ball just before it crossed the line...then the unthinkable happened and i either tripped or got pushed(our goalie thinks i got pushed but i don't recall being contacted). end result being i fell down onto the ball and because of the way my momentum was going and because a soccer ball is round and rolls well i rolled right into the net with the ball underneath me...it was most heinous. thankfully that didn't cost us the game and from there we were able to run the clock out and seal the deal with no further problems. also, i socred one goal in this game and set up 2 others...this was a very good game for me besides that final goal.
Next up was Taylor in the gold medal game. in my opinion taylor was a better team than prairie making them 2nd best. (it's kinda funny....i actually thought throughout the season that we were the best, taylor was second best and prairie was third best and that's how they ended up placing in the end...am i good or what?) i found taylor to be a harder team because they did not have a system that was as easy to defend against as prairie's was and i think they had more talented players than prairie did. we found out before this game that we were the most hated team in the league...one of our players overheard a conversation between 3 guys from the three other teams in the play-offs and the concensus was that they did not want united(that's us) to win and didn't care who won besides us. we found that kind of funny(and not really too surprising cause we tended to be the most physical and often most emotional team in the league) and it only motivated us to win even more. (i also found out after the game that when taylor found out that we beat prairie some of their players were concerned because they knew "we wanted it bad") this game was an even better game than the prairie game. we went out hard and racked up a score of 4-1 at the end of half-time and that was lucky for them cause we had several more chances that could have made it more. thye pushed us hard in the second half and to their credit managed to make it a 5-3 game. in the end, however, we were just too good on this week-end.
This was the best finish i could have asked for in my final year playing at the school. in my 3 years playing on the school team we had never won the championship and the silver and bronze from the 2 previous years were leaving a bad taste in my mouth. and knowing what kind of team we had and the potential on our team was killing me throughout the season. we finally put it together when it counted and played like i knew we would. it was a huge blessing playing on this team this year with all the guys. i doubt any of them will ever read this, but their heart and effort was really appreciated this year and i couldn't have asked for anything more from them.
honorable mention also goes out to the united girls team who played a heck of a game, but came up just short losing 2-1 in their gold medal game. their team was really awesome this year(they even had 4 out of the 10 all-conference players) and they sould be proud of their season(they even beat st mary's during the season who until that point had not lost a single game in 3 years...that's awesome!). most well-played girls.
so with that i have just one thing left to say. GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLD!!!