what makes a person a person.

Although I missed class on monday, I was fortunate enough to have a class mate fill me in the the fascinating details of the 50 minute period was absent from. The levels of who a person really is... This is a subject that i have been dealing with in a very real way for the past few weeks. Not only in self-reflection but in general, about other people I am very close with. And there is always the basic question, what makes people do the things they do? Why do people act against their own beliefs for something they want? Why do people settle for anything less than God's plan for their life?

I am a religious people watcher. It's one of my past-times, hobbies and passions. Whether they are walking to class, air-drumming in their car or simply sitting quietly, I'm always interested to know how they got there. Like in the TV show, when they start at the end of the episode and then they go back 13 hours to before the incident happened. I think that people are a lot like the earth, as Professor Corrigan argues. They are easy to pollute and death is inevitable. People are much more complex than a single celled organism, they have feelings, hopes and desires. When I see a woman crying on the side of the street or an old man at a bus stop i often wonder what choices they made along the way to walk them into the places and situations. I wonder about what they believe, and how they live that out.

People watching is a lot like reading a good book. Every person will see each character differently. And no one but the author (God) will truly see the character (humans) as were were created to look, feel and be. Which is why I believe that it is important to ask God to let us see people through his eyes and no longer through our narrow scope of thinking. People are multi-layered organisms that we are called to love. So maybe our reading and study of literature is a way of creating the skills to really explore people, and to more fully put ourselves in others shoes in order to fulfill our God given calling.

night i'd rather forget.

I remember it like it was yesterday. The cold dark night, the silent anticipation of things to come, the morbid hope that I would be wrong. I sat next to a good friend. His hair fell over his brown empty eyes. He had been telling me all night what to do in my current predicament. I obeyed. He told me we should follow her. I could still see her light grey eyes open and close as they spoon fed me lies. I could still hear her last words roll off her cozened tongue. Somewhere deep inside me i knew the truth. I knew the cold hard facts. 1. She was lying 2. I was a fool 3. It was over. As i sat in the passenger seat of that dark red ford pickup truck i knew that this moment was something that would change my life. I didn't say a word, my body language was screaming insecurities. The lights were off. Then she emerged from the house like a enemy fighter preparing for battle. I wasn't.

She was with her short stalky friend and i was with mine. There they stood completely unaware of our existence. She was in a green dress, and all this for a study visit to starbucks? My friend and i knew the answer. She wore a mask of love, and trust when all she really knew was deciept and guilt. She crossed through the yard into the car and all i could help thinking was where, who, why and what did i do to deserve this? The truth is no one deserves this.

We kept out of sight, we crept around the corner, we floated through the night like two shadows. And that's what we were. Shadows, dancing across the background of her night. We followed them down streets to a parking lot. It was a large parking lot and her trust for me removed her suspicion of me not trusting her. Around the corner we hid, like spies gathering intelligence. Both of us watched the scene unfold. A second car, an suv, another guy. In some ways i've learned to thank him. In others I can't help but resent him. She arose out of her car, and walked with such purpose, such pr-meditated infidelity. The kiss. The way my stomach turned. The tear that fell down my cheek. I'd never look at her the same way. My friend didn't say a word. He wasn't the type to ignite my already blazing flame. He knew that there were no words to console me.

I once saw her as beautiful. Now in a matter of seconds she became some else to me. Something ugly and vile. Something that I never wanted to be. She became the one thing we always swore we'd never be. She just did the things that she promised she'd never do. Her eyes turned black like coals. Her skin turned into a course paper. I no longer saw her the same. After all these years, and it all comes to this. The house of cards. Love is a house of cards. She is a house of cards. No matter how many attempts i made to stack it, it always falls.

I sat speechless. No word could describe my thoughts. No pen could name this feeling. This was the one time i never wanted to be right. Everything changed. Her look was no longer sweet to my eyes, it was bitter. Her dress was no longer glamorous, for the first time i saw her for exactly what she was. Fake.

music is in his bones.

I hope to be able to make music for a living one day. Reading this passage over and over again really kept meaning the same thing to me, my music can take so many shapes for so many different people. I'd like to think that I understand everything that goes into writing a song. But sometimes, there are parts, lyrics, guitar or piano riffs that I have no idea where they come from. Another thing that struck me about the passage we read sacredly, was how he seems to think that not many people really ever hear a song. As a musician that has been in a recording studio, I can say first hand that you can never truly ever hear a song until you've been through the process of creating a song. For example, a watchmaker puts all the pieces of that watch together. He sees watches in a completely different way than a normal, non-watch making person. The watchmaker thinks of each individual part, the escapement, periodic, balance wheel, balance spring... In that same way a un-athletic accountant can't fully appreciate the grace and beauty of a professional basketball player. Just like this, no one but the artist can really, truly hear any song or understand the meaning of any lyric.

I was fortunate enough to be able to record a album this fall in a professional, platinum certified studio, and i know for a fact that ever since then, I can't listen to music in the way. This doesn't mean the songs have changed. It simply means what I listen for has changed. I listen for each individual piece of the puzzle that makes the song what it is. John Mayer's new record "Battle Studies" is a perfect thing to listen to if you want to try and connect with a song. You can literally feel the emotion he was trying to deliver through each not he strums. Which sounds crazy, but if you listen, I mean really listen, I think you can hear it too.

I love listening and re-listening to music. I get something new out of it every time. I think a song is an amazing way to reach people, and also an amazing way to be moved. Although we will never fully know the artist true meaning, I think finding our own meaning is far more valuable.