One day as Jesus was walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew throwing a net into the water, for they fished for a living. Jesus called out to them, “Come, follow me, and I will show you how to fish for people!” And they left their nets at once and followed him.
A little farther up the shore Jesus saw Zebedee’s sons, James and John, in a boat repairing their nets. He called them at once, and they also followed him, leaving their father, Zebedee, in the boat with the hired men.

This is how I feel right now. I am just so done with school, depravity, assessing others, assessing myself, explaining myself, all of it.

I just want a lifestyle, an occupation, a career where I can just love God and love people, and do it with music. I have the tools, I just need the platform.

And I’m convinced college isn’t quite the road to take. At least not where I’m at right now, in the state that it’s currently in.

I’m done doing people favors, acting out what they didn’t, and what I thought was so important not so long ago. When did it become a crime for Christians to want Jesus, and Jesus alone?

It’s terrifying to think how loved ones will react, and how if I take that leap of faith, it’s only by faith in what He did and is doing I can expect to survive and be provided for.

When it comes right down to it, a lot of us “religious” people have so little to do with God it’s disgusting, myself included. And we’re not fighting.

I want to fight.

I realize I need…. more

20 I will never forget this awful time,
as I grieve over my loss.

21 Yet I still dare to hope
when I remember this:

22 The faithful love of the Lord never ends!
His mercies never cease.

23 Great is his faithfulness;
his mercies begin afresh each morning.

24 I say to myself, “The Lord is my inheritance;
therefore, I will hope in him!”

Lamentations 3:20-24

You will lend money to many nations but will never need to borrow. You will rule many nations, but they will not rule over you.

“But if there are any poor Israelites in your towns when you arrive in the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tightfisted toward them. Instead, be generous and lend them whatever they need.

Do not be mean-spirited and refuse someone a loan because the year for canceling debts is close at hand. If you refuse to make the loan and the needy person cries out to the Lord, you will be considered guilty of sin.

Give generously to the poor, not grudgingly, for the Lord your God will bless you in everything you do. There will always be some in the land who are poor. That is why I am commanding you to share freely with the poor and with other Israelites in need.” – Deuteronomy 15

http://bible.us/Deut15.4.NLT

Guess some things never change, no matter how much I assume they would in my absence. That said, a lot of things that were good ant stable when I left are now a bit disjointed and a little awkward to envision in their current state. (and I haven’t even heard the good 3-month-first-college-semester-timegap gossip yet!)

I feel like I should take a bit of insult with the fact that my bed has been removed. I can only sort of complain, though. I’m a sucker for interior design, and my room looks superb with one less bed cluttering up the space…

Sounded a lot like the stock market to me. Then things got interesting.

After calculating the money pool and determining we’d each get $1094.19 returns, she asked who in the class made off with more than $2,000; she quickly corrected herself, realizing (mistakenly) that no one could have actually made that much money overall, though many of my classmates were certainly claiming they did.

For a second there, it sounded a lot like what I had watched in the documentary “The Warning” yesterday, concerning the impact of “Over-the-Counter Derivatives” on both the stock market crash in 1998 and the recent (current?) recession.

Turns out my teacher’s mental math was flawed, and the students who gave nothing made of with well over $2,000, but it struck me how the scenario parallelled the precursors to our country’s economic woes, where promises and possibilities of gaudy returns based upon imaginary money and impossibly complicated (read: faulty) math collapsed the efficiency of those in control of the money (my teacher and her calculator).

previously published in the Pepperdine Graphic. for when my stories don’t get put on the website.

I also identify with the group of Pepperdine students who have spent at least some of their childhood in churches on in the more “charismatic” side of the spectrum. Specifically, the “black church,” if you will.

However, for the past several years I had been attending churches on the other side of the spectrum (“white church”), due to my family’s evolving preferences, among other factors. I’ve continued this trend since arriving on campus, though I’ve desired a change since acquiring new found independence.

For that reason, it’s been my personal preference to avoid Church of Christ venues and the like, including such offerings on and near campus. I need my instrumental worship, “call-and-response” sermons and an atmosphere a little more “upbeat” than most. I grew up with it, after all.

Accordingly, Celebration Chapel wasn’t really my thing. A singer myself, I considered joining their worship team, attending the tryouts and giving a great deal of consideration to it before deciding against it. I wanted to get involved on campus, despite my denominational preferences. I prayed about it, and it seemed it just wasn’t for me, and that was that.

Or so I thought. One singing group I did join during the first few weeks of school was Genesis Gospel Choir. Even before arriving on campus, I was quite enthusiastic about the ensemble and dedicated many an hour of Facebook/e-mail stalking to making sure I could take part.

This past week, Genesis Gospel Choir was invited to sing at Celebration Chapel, teaming up with their instrumentalists (collective gasp from Church of Christ adherents) and even one of their vocalists.

I was thrown for a loop as we “gospel-ized” contemporary Christian hits like “How Great Is Our God,” “Awesome God” and “Shout to the Lord” and mixed in our own numbers we had learned throughout the year.

Everything that turned me off to what I thought I would find at a CoC church was suddenly turned on its head, and contributing to one of the most enjoyable and unique musical experiences I’d ever experienced in person.

As we rehearsed on Thursday night before the event, things became clearer than they had ever been before: no matter what church we’re in, we’re all worshipping the same God and that’s all that matters, or has ever mattered.

As we sang CCM songs in three-part harmonies I had never heard before in my life, it was increasingly evident just how “great” and “awesome” our God really is, and it made me want to “Shout!” And so I did. Quite a bit, actually. This is what you do during Gospel worship.

During rehearsal, my face lit up as the Celebration Chapel team enjoyed, and collaborated on, the gospel choir’s respective songs, experiencing a style I’m sure is not usually featured in Stauffer on Friday mornings.

This Friday, it was. I’m almost certain God gave a little smirk as much of the usual Celebration Chapel crowd, along with those scrambling for last-minute Convo credit, danced around during worship time like it was a Church of God in Christ (the prominent “black church” denomination).

Now I ask myself: If I could go back in time and re-decide whether or not to join the Celebration Chapel worship team, would I make a different decision? Maybe, maybe not.

As things have transpired, clearly God wanted me to have some distance from them so I could experience his ultimate point.

In a seemingly random, and totally unexpected, team-up between Pepperdine’s offerings of the “black church” I grew up with and the “white church” I’ve been settling for, He showed me it’s not about congregation demographics, thumping music, booming sermons, audience participation or any of that.

It’s about who we came to talk/sing/dance/shout about, and everything else is pure preference.

http://youtube.com/natemup

eugh.

In my search for the perfect church (for me) in or near Malibu, I have been around the block and back again searching for something different. Just a little shake-up, compared to what I’ve been involved in for the past several years back home in Indiana.

I’ve been to Waveside Church in Malibu, a church literally on the shores of the Pacific Ocean where things were good, but not all that different compared to, well, every other predominantly white church that I’ve been attending since Christian Fellowship Church back in Evansville. The worship leader at Wavwside was Black, though. But when she’s belting Philips Craig and Dean and Mike Tomlin, is it really all that different?

Then I attended Reality LA, a church well-hyped by my classmates here at Pepperdine, some which who I accompanied there a few weeks ago. Expecting something phenomenal, I was disappointed once again. See above.

Then today, I visited Calvary Church in Pacific Palisades, where I guess I could expect the demographics would be a little lopsided, but it’s hard not to take notice when you’re literally the one black person in a congregation of more than a hundred.

Then there’s the snooze-worthy sermons. But I was probably too busy trying to squeeze forth morsels of anything pertinent or strikingly spiritual from their words and Scripture references to really remember what they were actually saying.

The weirdest (and probably the most amusing) aspects of attending these three churches was that I’m fairly certain at least one song from the worship portions of their services was shared across all three locations.

And I’m pretty sure their respective staffs shared each other’s outfits, from the plaid button-up on the male vocal lead (who also happens to play acoustic guitar), to the too-small V-neck and skinny jeans on the bassist, to the unashamedly homey look to the drummer, to the oddly similar double breasted polyester get-up with the oh-so-called-for blue jeans on the pastor.

Maybe (probably) I’m analyzing church a little too much.

Is that a sin?

watch for my upcoming post from my column in the Pepperdine Graphic next week.

previously published in the Pepperdine Graphic. for when my stories don’t get put on the website.

Four Loko varieties

So let me get this straight. Bone straight.

A dozen undergrads at Central Washington University are hospitalized earlier this month after heavy partying, involving consumption of lots of alcohol throughout the night.

After “careful” research and examination, the police and medical investigators have declared the culprit as the drink, a malt beverage known as “Four Loko” described as an “alcoholic energy drink”. (yikes!)

I’m sorry, but I see a problem here.

My problem is not with the fact that three Ohio State University alumni created and produced said drink in their free time. Despite the obvious moral integrity issues, I actually find the concept and execution quite ingenious.

Nor do I find fault with the fact that concerned individuals involved in the investigation wanted to know if a certain alcoholic beverage was especially dangerous for anyone to consume. “Four” was formed by fusing alcohol with our good friends caffeine, taurine, and guarana (think Monster or Rockstar Energy drinks) I dare you to try and drink that “responsibly.”

My issue with this ordeal is that in today’s society, when a group of underage drinkers are found unconscious at an apparently out-of-control college party, and the cause is determined to be heavy drinking, the conclusion made is: “Wow, the alcohol they were drinking must be quite dangerous!”

After some “research” of my own, consisting of years of social observation and a look at all the facts involved in this case, I came to a slightly different conclusion.

Perhaps these innocent young pursuers of knowledge simply drank too much. And by “too much,” I mean “any at all.” Many of the party-goers were admittedly under the age of 21, experimented with a questionable substance they clearly were not used to and failed to regulate their intake of the drink with reasonable caution.

But that was all the drink’s fault, right?

“Social Drinking, College Edition” ( a.k.a. getting “faced,” “sloshed,” “hammered,” “plastered,” “blitzed,” etc.) and creating havoc afterward evidently can be attributed to whatever’s in your system, with secondary regard to how it got there.

Though CWU has begun the process of questioning those involved, I seriously doubt that the slap on the wrist they’re bound to receive will cause them to drop their beers and start thinking logically.

This is not to say I don’t see the other side of the story. As the realist in me certainly says college students, in their endless quest to be more “adult-like” and “independent” will drink regardless of their age. Also, virtually mixing Red Bull and Smirnoff is bound to create effects even Lindsey Lohan isn’t ready to cry her way out of.

But I continue to find myself highly uncomfortable with the fact that underage drinking, especially among the college demographic, is popularly considered a “societal norm.”

How “normal” is it that the most well-known form of weekend recreation for a collegian involves a general loss of cognition, involuntary vomiting, voluntary endangerment of others (“Oh, I’m fine. I can still drive home.”) and one heck of a migraine the next day?

As desirable as I know all of that sounds, it makes me a little squeamish myself to know that when I’m home playing Scrabble with some suitemates on a Friday night, my friends are out getting their drink on and pretending like “it’s just what we do now” is a valid justification.

Can we, as honest, privately-schooled, Christian-affiliated college students take a long hard look at what underage drinking has become, and really come to the conclusion that it’s the drink’s fault, and not the drinker?

I should think not. There’s a reason they call it getting “wasted”, and it’s not because it comes in a disposable can. Think about it.

Maman died today. What else can I say?

Camels and Starbucks; be back at work on Monday anyway.

I love my mom and all, I just don’t want to see her dead face

So what if I don’t cry, and can’t remember her age?

Don’t make me justify my love. Who am I? Madonna?

It’s a funeral, yes, but it reminds me of a sauna.

CHORUS: I know the world has customs, traditions, and a judging eye

but I’d rather sit at home and watch the cars go by.

This ain’t a cry for attention, because I’d rather be unwatched

So let’s swim, smoke, and have sex. Lots.

So I avoid my favorite spot, that’s how much I like the questions

call me Shia LaBeouf: I like girls, Tru Confessions.

She was my kind of beautiful, but it wasn’t God who made her for me.

I just met a girl named Marie: West Side Story.

CHORUS

She asks me if I love her, I say I don’t care

She wanna play a Lovegame, but I’m no Gaga and life ain’t fair.

I don’t return emotion, give her no reason to stay,

but I keep her fascinated, so she loves me anyway.

I don’t return affection, I don’t do consecration

She in it for the long haul; I’m in it for the copulation

CHORUS

I have friends in high places, but most are from my hood

Raymond Sintes A.K.A. Mr. up to no good.

Got me doin’ his dirty work, I’d say no if I could.

He’s a pimp and an abuser, Chris Brown meets Tiger Woods.

My other dude Salamano lost his girl, and beats his dog,

It’s sorta sad, but there’s no records in my emotional log.

CHORUS

Then came that dark day, and it lasted so long

I shoulda never went to chill my boy Masson.

The beach house was nice, and the beach was even better.

You know how I like swimming, so she and I got even wetter.

Ray’s girl’s bro was in town though, and they weren’t very happy,

unapproving of how Ray and and his sis been gettin’ scrappy.

yeah, then they cut him; I’m talkin blade with a switch.

we take him to the ER, but I ain’t bout to snitch.

Raymond wanna light ‘em up, but I calm him and take his gat

then I pull a CSI and return to the scene of the crime was at.

the culprit was there, his knife to my gun,

but I ain’t Sheryl Crow, not trying to soak up the sun.

it’s like Coke vs. Pepsi, Calvin Klein vs. Hilfiger,

the sun’s glinting in my eyes, wait. was that the trigger?

CHORUS

Now they tryin’ me for murder, and I’ve got no excuses

Everybody’s against me, even my lawyer is useless.

They want the death penalty, death’s door feels some knockin’

They callin’ me Antichrist, can a brother get Johnny Cochran??

The priest tryna tell me only God can save me,

but he’s not real and if he was, he ain’t been helpin me lately

why do these strangers and acquaintances all want me dead?

that’s one more homegirl who I hope will never be wed.

make like a cranium and hold that thought; I think I’m losing my head…