The Cover Songs...vol. 1

This is my attempt at Jon McLaughlin's "Beautiful Disaster." --- It's not perfect, but I'm happy with it, and would like to share it with ya'll.

well, it sure has been a while. Here are some thoughts of mine:

Sometimes I feel as if I'm in waiting.

This year, there were three instances where friends of mine sort of 'drifted' away and I thence found myself sitting and waiting. Not purusing. Not moving on. Not mourning. Not questioning. Not expecting anything. Rather, just waiting - almost *knowing* that they'd be back. Now, one of these so-called 'drifts' lasted a couple of days (which makes it seemingly insignificant in normal circumstances, but I've included it as it supports the forthcoming metaphore/lesson), another a number of months (5ish), and another half of a semester. I'm happy to say that all three relationships have been reconciled - including (when necessary) apologies, recognition of mistakes, and forgiveness from both parties. I could go on, but to avoid giving you the impression that these were awfully dramatic circumstances (as that's not necessarily the case), I'll compress my main point to this: as these relationships have blossomed over the past few weeks, one idea hit me. hard.

"Peter, what if God is the one WAITING on you?" God - Not purusing. Not moving on. Not mourning. Not questioning. Not expecting anything. Just, waiting - *knowing* that [I'd] be back.

The Bible instructs US numerous times to WAIT for the Lord. "Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD." - Psalms 27:14, for example. I find my contrary application to be a helpful emphasis on the idea that I may, admittedly, be 'drifting' away, and that He is working in and waiting for me. I think that's the idea a number of people have been trying to imply and communicate to me as I live my college life without the influence of a small group, with less church/spiritual support than before, without daily devotions, without a *yearning* to really come closer to him and grow in my relationship...

I think it's high time that changed.

Books

I've never really been a reader, perse. Though, as curiosity, boredom, and bargain-pressure may have it, I purchased four books at Urbana. I have a slight fear in the back of my mind that I will lose my motivation after one or two, and not start or finish the others for quite some time (as I foresee little time in college for such ventures). I've listed them in the order I inted to read them. I'm almost halfway through "Reimaging Evangelism" by Rick Richardson. It's a good, solid read. The authors gives insight into newer, fresher ways to evangelize to the emerging world (ie, postmoderns). Much of what he's said I've heard in church from Greg and others, but its nice to have a refreshing exposure to it again.



But of course, four books weren't enough. I was talking to my friend Joe on the phone once during Urbana. He was expressing great joy in a book he was reading entitled "Velvet Elvis." The name alone intrigued me, and I just so coincidentally found a number of copies of this book on sale at BORDERS for $3.99. I bought one. Now here's the deal. I hardly ever, and I mean ever, read a book somebody has recommended to me. Not because I don't trust their taste in books, or becasue I don't care - I just have never been much of a reader. I anticipate enjoying the aforementioned books, and will probably want to recommend at least some of them to others. If my recommendation recipients don't wish to read the books, no offense taken because I never read your recommendations either. Maybe "Velvet Elvis" will help change this flaw of judgement in me. The complete title is, "Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith." I read the intro, and it was intriguing.

"Ah, the burden of a live and thriving conscience"

Gee, Peter, its been a while...That it has. As I've tried to rid the "here's what happened today" style from my writing arsenal, I intend not for this to be an 'update' entry, but rather a post describing, vividly, my seemingly unique and unprecedented mindset this past few weeks. Truth be told, I found myself significantly distracted in that time, for a number of reasons - generally speaking, the most silly and teenage-boy-driven ridiculous reasons at that - but, they were distractions that I had to deal with nonetheless. Someday, I will write about my evolving thoughts on dating, courtship, marriage, and the like, but that will not be today. Hopefully, though, you can understand that I was relatively enamoured by a wonderful girl and had to deal with those strong emotions regardless of the fact that dating/going out is simply out of the question at my current stage of life. As I tend to be a clear communicator, the fact that I just plainly *could not* communicate [for complicated reasons not to be discussed here] these feelings to this person, made life difficult. So there I was, hanging out with a bunch of great people, but frustrated with my situation and my goal of handling it in the most mature, responsible, and sensible way possible. As my mental rollercoaster proceeded, I communicated my circumstances to several close friends, siblings, and parents, and felt somewhat more relieved. Laurel, bless her heart, recognized what the heart of my issue was [no pun intended] and that is, "ah, the burden of a live thriving conscience." It truly is a burden. I suppose I *could* be like the typically high-school/college-aged guy and pursue women like they're candy, hardly respect their own emotionally stability as I only monitor mine, never clearly communicate anything and only leave them guessing, questionable, concerned, etc.. - but, I can't. It's seriously, not possible for me to do anything stupid like that. If I ever contemplate it [which hardly happens in its own regard], my reasoning and thought process quickly eliminates the thought. It's great, but it is a burden, and its a burden which I'm proud to undertake.

So, a number of things have been gracing my mind lately, that being the most significant. Now, fast forward to now [December 2nd] and allow me to share my current stance. I would like to say that my feelings have, for the most part, passed for this girl. Honestly, its a combination of the factors of, "well, we don't get along super great anymore, I'm about 2nd [or maybe even third nowadays] in line, I found the need to start focusing more on music and academics, and would I really find it suiting to potentially ruin a friendship and cause tension within the setting of our group of friends?" No. I realize these sound initally negative and depressing, but its the conclusion I've reached. Sure, affirmation would've been great, had she just said, "You know Peter, I'm not interested in dating at all this year, but in the future, I could definately see you as a likely guy..." or whatever she might say, then I'd have been encouraged and thrilled. But, this is college, so I'm going to be an adult and move past the silly emotional phase.

In a way, I think the burden has lessened - I've felt more at ease this week [which is good, I had a ton of homework], my acne has seemed to be letting up, and I'm just more of a comfortable person. Are this gal and I still friends? absolutely - nothing has happened to cause us to sever our friendship, for which I'm grateful. Many, many times I was tempted to just. tell. her. But, I'm glad I persevered and waited for the feeling to pass rather than acting on the ephemeral emotional impetus.

So, thank you everybody who dealt with me as I dealt with my frustration. I know, at times, I wasn't the most pleasant person meandering about, but...patience wins in this case, so thanks.
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Now, onto less male-mind intensive things. I've totally been into PANDORA recently. I know I've mentioned it before on this blog, but I seriously recommend everybody try it, and find some new, awesome music that you didn't know existed. I've discovered so many great musicians [not big namers, either] on this site that I really, really enjoy. To name a few: Gabe Dixon Band, Beazly Phillips Band, Daniel Powter, some Ben Folds songs that I hadn't heard before, AJ Croce, Ben Graves, the Cat Empire, and more!

I visited St. Louis last weekend for Thanksgiving, it was pleasant. I've had this misgiving in my mind for quite sometime that, if I go to a gathering where many of my high school peers are, that everyone in attendence will simply revert back to their old high-school selves. I believe I am so much past my high school experience, and really do not wish to revert to it, ever. Over break I saw some old friends, of course, but never did a big group thing [I did get invited to one though, so I suppose that's something]. One-on-one hanging out, or small group gatherings of friends who I know are different, more developed individuals would be totally fine and groovy with me, so I hope to take advantage of some of those over my long break. Whoo hoo.

My keyboarding professor finally said that I don't have to come to any more classes. I believe I will be taking private piano lessons next semester, too which is a great plus.

Well, I wrote a less-than-thrilling paper, and am meeting with my writing advisor shortly. Hopefully, we'll peacefully come to a way to improve it. Thanks for reading!

Here's a sight I was grateful of to enjoy yesterday.

On Organization, Humility, and the Symphony

Organization. Some call it an acquired skill, I call it a gift. I feel, also, that organization spans three primary areas: Cleanliness, Hospitality, and Social Endeavors. While various family members, friends from adolescence, music teachers, and others whom crossed paths with me might deny this, I feel that I am, in fact, organizationally gifted. This particular trait was simply waiting to be discovered (unleashed, if you will) and it's on the verge of doing just that. I can recall a number of times in high school where my parents travelled for the weekend and left me with responsibility over the household. While I would often leave and hang out with friends, a yearning for cleanliness always harbored in the back of my mind. When I felt this, I would clean the house (more like straighten up, but the unprecedented effort was still put forth) - just on a random, strangely-conjured whim. In high school, I seldom kept my bedroom clean; it really disgusted my parents and siblings. I hypothesize this: Because I appearantly viewed my room as a more of a sleeping/dressing/stuff-keeping area (I did not spend much time in it as my computer, trumpet, keyboard, and comfortable homework spots were in the basement), it was hardly appealing to keep clean. Contrary to this, the house - the fully-utilized living areas - did seem more important to maintain in presentable condition, for obvious reasons. There was, however, another strong reason for a sparking of the "clean me" impulse...

...girls.

My parents are gifted with hospitality. For about 4 years we would typically host a family or two for dinner 1-2 Sundays per month; sometimes more, sometimes less, but that's irrelevant. My sister would commonly joke with me, "Peter, you know that we'll be doing the SAME thing when we're their age - it'll be impossible not to!" Organization, then, can also be an inherited gift. Sure, you can say that it's upbring and "training" in a way, but I'll maintain that its a gift - I've seen people without it. Well, hospitality is something I've always enjoyed, and it seems that even more trying circumstances, like hosting a party where several girls are invited, bring out that inner-organizer more. I remember freshman year, around the time of final exams, Jessica and I decided to study geometry together. Not, "study" as so many probably expected, but, actually, study. Because I was so euphoric about this little, mundane, 2-hour long session (which of course felt like eternity, *ahh...*), I spent the better half of the morning and afternoon cleaning the basement and other parts of the house. Now, this wasn't simple straightening-up, this was an all out annihilation of anything unpresentable. I remember chuckling to myself and with my mom, "well, hey, if you ever need the house clean, just let me invite Jessica (or other girls of 'emotional signficance' for lack of a better word) over." I've felt subject to good presentability for quite some time; I blame, but now thank, my sister for this - I've never worn a brown belt with black shoes and pants since. This ideal of presentablity has stuck with me as I've gotten to college, too. My room is, generally speaking, pretty clean; I usually clean it once a week, and even then it's only a bit of putting stuff away. A couple weeks ago when I had peers over for hot chocolate and tea after the soccer game, I came up about ten minutes prior to make everything spic and span. I can't not have a clean room when people, particularly girls, come over. Its part of embracing a servant's heart, and honoring my sisters. When applicable, the occasional mindset of impressing and pleasing the guest(s) may find its way into the equation too, admittedly.

So, now onto the area of organization which really inspired this topic: social organization. I was recently admiring my social organization skills after having almost executed the perfect planned outing to the symphony on Wednesday. The lone element that made it imperfect was that one of the group members was about 20 minutes late to the meeting place. Well, the eight of us were then ten minutes late arriving to the Symphony Hall, where we had to stand in the lobby for twenty minutes awaiting the end of the violin concerto before we could be seated. So, since I was so concerned and into the organization that I put into this (with pretty much nobody else) I felt almost violated, and started to assume the sassy, immature mindset of, "um...okay, this is my event and you're being selfish and ruining it for me; they're not even appreciative of all the work I put into making it happen." Yeah, I was pretty much a mentally selfish jerk, so I prayed for a while and just asked God to relieve me from the selfishness and bitterness I was feeling. Well, Ellie is an awesome person and somehow knows whenever I'm feeling like junk for some reason or another and spoke nice encouragement. We finally got to go in, sit down, and right at the end of the first movement of the Brahm's 4th Symphony, I let out a huge, fulfilling sigh of relief. There were other, minute reasons for my feeling crummy, too. But for the most part, they were beautifully alleviated.

:-)

So, through this event and mental rollercoaster, I learned, once again, the importance of humility. I was a selfish, impatient, and mostly unpleasant chap at the beginning of that night, and could tell my friends weren't that thrilled. But, the music soothed me and I realized my faults of self-centeredness. Funny how that works. After the symphony, we hung out at Starbuck's for quite some time, and I had my first cafe latte - another step down the path of developing a keen taste for coffee.

Here are some pictures, courtesy of Mindy:

Lizzy, Mindy, Chris, Jason, Joe, Peter, Ellie, Brent

'Giddy'up

Lookin' good in Pink

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Remember Jim Wallis speaking in chapel (previous post)? Well, I got on TV, briefly.

It wasn't the most thrilling news story - more disapproval of the republican party - but, certainly neat for North ParkUniversity to be part of the footage.

"With guru-like organization skills, ought come humility."

haha...what an inherently funny, self-contradicting statement.

The Freedom to Think What I Will.

Yesterday, North Park Played host to Jim Wallis, author and speaker, in our weekly Chapel Service. The event was rather large, including the gospel choir participating in worship as well as a camera crew from ABC's Good Morning America capturing the event. Despite being a uniquely-privilaged attendee of the Republican National Convention in 2004 (which was a great experience, dont' get me wrong), I've found recently that politics generally don't perk my intrigue, especially liberals and conservatives trying to convince me that one's right and the other wrong. Of course, I suppose that's what politics is. Anyway, as Wallis' booming voice rang throughout the walls of Anderson Chapel, I could only get vibes of North Park marinating in the publicity, err potential publicity, it will recieve as a result, rather than really condoning or being concerned about the man's message. They made a big deal about him and I had high expectations, but I suppose that along with the new, independent living styles I've seemed to grasp came new, independent thinking styles, too. I no longer need to adopt "default" opinions of my family or church as I once would. In the same way, I now more clearly understand my freedom to think what I will - In this case, I could sense a genuine dissatisfaction in Jim Wallis' speech.

Perhaps I came in with a slightly skeptical bent towards the Christian left, however, I attempted to remain open-minded nonetheless. Janna may have put it best when she simply said, "Yeah, he really didn't make any good points." Jim Wallis has earned credibility, sure, but nothing he said seemed worthwhile and internally motivating. What is Wallis' plan to save the world? Eliminating poverty. And, of course, "[we] are the generation to do it." Hmm, heard that before? I think Jesus told people (or at least implied) to get off their butts and do something about it, too. Maybe even people after him, and for the following 2000 years. Do we need to hear it? Yes, certainly. I definately do not do enough to help the poor and homeless. Does Jim Wallis proactively do anything about it? Beats me. I don't feel like promoting a book, coming on television, manipulating the audience by mentioning then side-stepping emotionally-captivating issues like abortion, and misusing other politically-based rhetoric was an acceptable way of addressing the said issue. I needn't go into more, but I was dissatisfied and dissapointed with his speech. Furthermore, NPU's following responsive prayer where we confessed that we often misaddress important issues in the world such as focusing on abortion and gay-marriage rather than poverty perturbed me as well.

Welcome to the world, Peter. I ought to say, that when I say I now have the freedom to think on my own, its moreso a mindset of actually doing it. When within the influence of my parents and church, I was mainly exposed to the conservative right side, and thus believed them by default. Now, I can address the said issues and controversies without that influence, where my opinions are tested. I certainly don't disagree...I'm just communicating that I can come to those conclusions on my own, moreso, now.
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More "freshman moments." The most notable: I was caught red-handed with a dirty trumpet in my lesson. The following 20 minutes now escalated to the top in the scale of "most humiliating minutes of the year" (though my first dialogue essay critiqued in class is a close second). After Joe worked his magic, I'm playing a new trumpet. Proof? Today in orchestra Dr. Zelle complimented me on a much improved tone with a good sense of senority/superiority during my solo. Go figure...I found myself saying, "Never Again" much like my pal in the previous post.

"Never Again"

These undaunted words came from a very hungover floormate this afternoon. Appearantly, in the three hours I was away from the room last night, he consumed half a bottle of smirnoff (provided by someone else) and shortly after the Bears' behemoth comeback last night, started running and shouting up and down the hallway, causing quite the stir/entertainment among our peers this morning. When I came back, the guy was out cold. As I was completing my homework assignment at my desk at about 1:30 AM, I start hearing one of the most repugnant and loathsome sounds in the world: a man throwing up in his sleep. It continued off and on for about five minutes; I was half afraid he might suffocate or something, so I yelled at him, poked him with stuff and the guy did. not. budge. After resting all morning, he's come to an admirable conclusion: "Never again." It was his first time, and as the curiosity of a free college freshman may entice, he just wanted to try it. "Never again" he says. As my inner mother is slowly coming out (seperating his red sheets from his white pillow/pillowcase in his laundary load), and we reflect on the previous evening, I find a positive bonding experience in the works.

Recent friendship developments have made college seem like threshold week a bit again. I'm hanging out more often with some people I've met only recently, whose company I enjoy very much, and I'm constantly still meeting new people and new scenarios. It keeps life vibrant, I suppose, if nothing else.
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Kosova has been on my mind quite a bit recently, here's why.
> Sunday afternoon I recieved a long, informational email from Mark and Trish, missionaries whom I worked with this summer.

> North Park University has been publicizing multiple short-term mission opportunities all over the world for either winter or spring break.

>I've emailed/chatted with some friends from there, and try to be proactive in maintain relationships with both Kosovars and North Americans.

>Urbana is coming up, and I'm planning to attend that conference open-minded, hopefully crossing paths with some of the CrossWorld Team Members.

> I saw on the Chicago News, of all places, that Nicole Kidman traveled to Kosova earlier this week on UN celebrity ambassodor assignment. I was just excited that people now are hearing more about the region, and that perhaps good things are happening.

I now see that the KOSOVA JOURNAL portion of my website has gone off the recent posts list, so you may access it here, for those of you who are interested in my experiences this summer.



Finally, I've discovered two favorable, little-known bands worth noting. The Beazley Phillips Band and The Gabe Dixon Band. Check them out, if you want.