Ryan’s Place

Well, just a quick note to inform that the gullible people at Georgetown “consider me a competetive applicant” and want to interview me. And, gladly, they happen to be flying an interviewer out to Chicago the 2nd of March, so I won’t even have to spring for a plane ticket. (Not that a $100 ticket and a weekend in DC would have killed me, but even so.) So, I’ll get to go charm the good folks and see if they want to do the honors of letting me give them a bunch of money to once again attend classes. =)

Just a couple other applications to get in but i have a sneaking suspicion that this will probably be the one. anywhoo. Any insights, words of wisdom, lucky charms (the cereal will do) or slapping me into sanity are much appreciated.

Peace,
Ryan

I know I’m a couple days early for my bi-annual blog post, but I hope you’ll forgive the hastiness. Anywhom, I just returned from the road today after spending five of the last seven days in or around Atlanta. The security screeners at the airport and I are good buddies now (slip them a fiver and it’s amazing what you can get through… just kidding) and I had the good fortune of missing a few of the most bitterly cold days here in Chicago. Living in Atlanta doesn’t sound so bad right about now. But, anyway, we had a regional meeting the last couple of days, and it went really well.

Speaking of work, I am continuing to put applications in for grad school in the fall. If you would, pray for me that I would have wisdom about the whole thing. While I think going back full-time would be the best, I have a great job and remember that just over three years ago I was schlepping trays of greasy food for tips and wondering how i was going to make rent… while I am pretty enthused about going back full time there isn’t a day when i don’t think I’m at least a little crazy for thinking about doing so. Anyway.

I read Chris’s recent post about the Mark Bell book and I got inspired to comment on a book I’m currently (re)reading (we’re talking about it in our small group) by another one of the newer generation of christian authors, Don Miller’s “Blue Like Jazz.” From what I can gather from the book, he’s kind of a granola-inclined pacific northwest type who I wouldn’t bet on ever having a slick TBN presentation. That being said, I really like a lot of what he has to say. The book is basically a personal retrospective on his own spiritual journey and is written in a narrative style. I was reading it in the airport today as I waited for my flight to board and came across a passage I thought was profound where he’s reflecting on waiting in line at the supermarket as a woman in front of him ashamedly paid for her food with foodstamps…
“…she walked away from the checkout stand in the sort of stiff movements a person uses hwen they know they are being watched. On the drive home that afternoon, I realized that it was not the woman who should be pitied, it was me. Somehow I had come to believe that because a person is in need, they are candidates for sympathy, not just charity. It was not that I wanted to buy her groceries; the government was already doing that. I wanted to buy her dignity. And yet, by judging her, I was the one taking her dignity away. I wonder what it would be like to use food stamps for a month. I wonder how it would feel, standing in line, pulling from my wallet the bright currency of poverty, feeling the probing eyes of the customers… I would want to explain to them that I have a good job and make good money.

I love to give charity, but I don’t want to be charity. This is why I have so much trouble with grace.

I while back I was listing prayer requests to a friend, mentioning many of my friends and family but never spoke about my personal problems. My friend candidly asked me to reveal my own struggles, but I told him no, that my problems weren’t that bad. My friend answered quickly “Don, you are not above the charity of God.” In that instand he revealed my motives were not noble, they were prideful. It wasn’t that I cared about my friends more than myself, it was that I believed I was above the grace of God… it isn’t that I want to earn my own way to give something to God, it’s that I want to earn my own way so I won’t be charity… who am I to think myself above God’s charity? And why would I forsake the riches of God’s righteousness for the dung of my own ego?”

He continues the thought…

“…if I cannot accept God’s love, I cannot love him in return, and I cannot obey Him. Self discipline will never make us feel righteous or clean; accepting God’s love will. The ability to accept God’s unconditional grace and ferocious love is all the fuel we need to obey Him in return… fall in love and a human will accomplish what he never thought possible… the laziest of men will swim the english channel to win his woman… by accepting God’s love for us (and thereby acknowledging our need) we fall in love with Him, and only then do we have the fuel we need to obey. In exchange for our humility and willingness to accept the charity of God, we are given a kingdom… and a beggar’s kindgom is better than a proud man’s delusion.”

obvious stuff I know, but good nontheless, i think… i haven’t finished the book (again) yet but so far I appreciate the outlook. the book is pretty anectodal and the quirky personality of the author comes through, but sometimes his quirkyness sees things in a way that helps drive home truths i need to remember.

so… off to bed with me. see you all in six months. =)

so, I’m now all settled in the new place. Walls are painted (and a little bit of the ceiling too, inadvertantly), boxes are unpacked, furniture is arranged, etc etc… even bought new bedding and gave the old college sheets a much-deserved retirement. although the place almost looks TOO put together; i’m thinking i need to get somthing crappy for the place so it looks a little less metro. ah well. =)

so, work is almost quiet - of my let’s see 4 bosses at the moment, 3 are out on vacation. so i’m catching up on a lot of work. it’s nice. oh, and i’m going to a blues club tonite (www.kingstonmines.com - best blues in chicago and only two blocks from my house. muahahaha) and Aaron and a certain someone are coming in tomorrow to see the city. Friday night is poker with the guys, although it could be a slim crowd. Saturday and Sunday? no plans yet. will figure something out, I’m sure. something outdoorsey to enjoy the last of the summer. well, enough for now…

hey folks,

yes, i know, eons since i’ve posted. i’ll try and do better. i have motivation and opportunity now, i have a snappy new macbook that i’m thoroughly enjoying and so the excuse for not posting of having a balky computer is no longer there. you can look forward to more frequent postings from here on…

on to other news, i am now in a new place! (my address is now 2527 N Sheffield, #3D, Chicago, IL 60614. Google earth map it and you’ll see it’s kinda right in the middle of everything.) I love my new place. it’s definitely the nicest place I’ve lived in; a newish condo (built after 2000, i think) with 2 bedrooms (i finagled the master bedroom), two baths, in-unit laundry, and (gasp) an indoor heated parking space. In with the deal i got a very cool roommate, with whom I’ve lived before and know I can coexist with. All this for the same price as the rather vintage one-bed i lived in before. and it’s a nicer neighborhood. (Mom, Dad, I doubt you’d have any pistol-wielding antics afoot here if you come to visit. to the rest of you, it’s a long story). I am really, really happy with the new place and already feel at home there. Yesterday, as I was cleaning out my old place, i was trying to re-install some screens and was having a terrible time fighting trying to get the 100-year-old, wooden, counterweighted windows to un-stick enough that i could put the screens back in, and i realized, man, i’m really not going to msis this at all. “vintage charm” fades quickly when your windows don’t work and you can’t keep the dirt out of the place. =) all in all, though, i’m thankful for the year there and everything that living along taught me. the new place is also a testament to the Lord’s faithfulness; Chris (the new roommate) and I had been looking at places for a few days and were getting pretty frustrated; good apartments were hard to come by and nothing was really panning out. We decided to pray about it and the next day, found out that a guy from my small group at church had this place available that he owned and wanted to rent out. The rent was scarcely higher than some dives we’d looked at, and the place is beautiful - with a great landlord, to boot. Just goes to show that the Lord does listen when we pray.

however, after the full weekend of packing, moving, unpacking, sorting, painting, pitching, cleaning, etc., i’m really, really sore and am glad for a day at work where the heaviest thing I have to lift is the phone.

well… that’s it for now - back to my strenuous deskish duties.

so, i’m updating my blog on a friday night. in chicago. what the heck. =)

ah well, despite the hermetic tendencies suddenly displayed and the incompatability of said tendencies with my overall personality, i’m really quite content this evening. i cleaned my apartment, did laundry, and kicked back and watched “kung fu hustle” which, it must be said, is a pretty clever - not quite parody, but close - of the genre… anywhoo…

so, the reason I’m happy chilling on a friday night is that this week, much like the one before, was pretty crazy… i counted up on Thursday night and I was already up to 53 hours on the week. eesh. however, there is some relief tonight, as my erstwhile boss who had been making my life so busy may finally have ticked off enough of the important people to suffer some consequences, and in the meantime, i have managed to impress said “important people.” now, this is all somewhat moot since I don’t really plan on staying there indefinitely - however, if my boss situation changed, it’d look much more appealing - but it makes me feel a little better about work.  and i’m enough of a perfectionist that i actually do care. not that i tend to get things right the first go-round, but it’s at least nice to see the time and effort somewhat rewarded…

so… it’s taught me a lot though, about what’s important, what matters, etc etc etc. as you may note if you read the rest of the blogs on here, i come from a family of philosophical types, so i’ll try not to overindulge the familial prediliction. or the one about using big words. hehe.

soo… guess there’s not much else to tell that’s open to public consumption… (just kidding). i’ll be off now, there’s laundry to press.

yeah, since hte last post was my own political diatribe, i thought i’d let all (four) of you loyal readers in on what’s going on in my life… i got back from Dallas on Wednesday, after spending five days down there visiting friends, doing meetings, and soaking up a little sun and (comparably) warm weather… now it’s kind of back to the grind, same old stuff, staying busy, work, church, friends - you know the drill. planning on going to visit Aaron/Andrew here soon, trying to nail down some dates… i guess that’s about it from this popsicle stand. i wish i had exciting news, but life is rather daily at present. hope you all are doing great and gotta see you guys soon…

anyway, i should really write an article on this, but i don’t have the time or energy tonight… i get so frustrated at the continual headlines, shock-and-awe-attention-grabbers on all the majors portraying this current situation as some groundswell of populist outrage at the west and our decadence and disrespect of their religion… the nearly complete absence of competent journalism on this topic baffles me. does no one realize that these are countries protesting most vociferously are ones where the unemployment rate tops 10, 20, 30, 40 percent? that the protests in these countries (that aren’t greeted with government gunfire) are officially encouraged, not just allowed? (don’t get me started on the flag kiosks that wind up showing up wherever the journalists cameras show up. journalists are, after all, for the most part, glorified voyeurs - going for the juciest bits rather than the real story behind the made-for-tv footage.) not to mention that these cartoons were originally published months ago, and the protests only occured after some rabble-rousing imams toured the middle-east trying to drum up outrage. yet the real story here is the sophistication with which the regimes of the middle-east know how to play the west. the rulers of the majority of the middle-east are, for the most part, corrupt, ineffective, strongmen bloated with the power of massive oil revenues. the development of thier countries has been held back for decades by the largesse of the oil funds, as the development of human and economic capital has been stunted by the stupor of being able to survive simply by sitting back and pumping the wallets of the world. their rulers have continually jailed the liberal intelligensia and reformers; while, at the same time, to try and maintain their power, have directed the anger and boredom of their populations - using Islam as their basis - at the West in order to deflect the discontent of thier populace away from their own ineffectual and self-serving rule. the real irony is that those rulers who have used realpolitik for decades to maintain themselves may infact foment the kind of “clash of civilizations” that they have used for ages as a deflection, a strawman in order to prop themselves up. people in the US and the rest of the West are doubtless baffled by the response to the cartoons, convinced that there is some intense fundamental disconnect between the west and the muslim world. while, for the most part, the reality lies that we are seeing hte completely logical result of our own doing. the doing of the middle-east, becuase of their continued corruption, lack of development, staggering unemployment and discontent of their population; and the West, by our continuing-head-in-the-sand dependence on an unsustainable river of cheap oil.

what can you do. such, as they say, is life.

unless you subscribe to the Ebenezer Scrooge school of thought, where mental acrobatics can be “more of gravy than of grave.” but that’s neither here nor there, in fact i’m not sure where the heck it came from. i’m not sure that particular aside even has a home… thank god.

anyway, my older brother Chris’s post (on www.thehubbs.net/chris) about his life situation got me thinking… i, more often than many would probably think, compare my life to my older brother’s, probably because we’re close in age, have a lot in common despite how completely different we are, and spent a lot of time together growing up. while at one point, we both basically swam in the same circles, the degree to which we’re in different places now sometimes boggles me. him, stable, married, father, linear, steady, directed, settled. me - well, pretty much the opposite of everything listed above. not that i’m all that upset about it - we are very different people - but i wonder, what’s the cause ofmy current path? am i curious or self-indulgent? exploratory and inquisitive or just kind of feckless? determined to find the right path or just avoiding the paths altogether? whatever it is, i don’t know if i feel the same as I did in that life past where everything was, if not always clearer, was at least somewhat simpler… i think i’m sure of less now than I was then, but feel better about that which I am “sure” about. i’m more prone to evaluate than judge, more likely to deconstruct than to choose. i guess it’s part of whittling down to what you really are at the bottom of it all. i think i’ve been somewhat less impressed with my own importance in the grand scheme of it all, which is good…

anyway, i’m rambling. while i’m not currently completely satisfied with my life - who is - i’m okay for now with what I’m doing. while i’m spending a lot of time at my job and such, i feel like that’s the work God’s given me for the moment, and I need to learn as much at that as I can and do as good of a job as is possible. which, at the moment, takes up a lot of time. but, it seems to be where I’m at. when my situation changes, which no doubt it will, i don’t want to look back and wish I’d given it my best while I was here.

speaking of, i gotta get some sleep. love y’all - leave me comments!! random jokes, dietary recommendations, and anecdotal evidence as to the existence of worldwide conspiracies and homicidal tapeworms are all welcomed, valued, and subsequently reported to the relevant authorities.

peace,

ryan

Okay, I know. I’m a slacker. While I did have a kick of ambition that led me to post several times around the new year, I haven’t posted since. Shame on my laziness. Then again, I haven’t had anything that exciting to post about either. Life has sort of returned to the normal, steady pace that I’ve grown accustomed to. I’m travelling for work this week and will be in Georgia for the next three days; I’ll be home a week after that and then will be in Dallas for about four days. Then home a week, then out again, etc etc etc you get the drift. I don’t really mind, though. I’m getting to develop some good friendships with new people I’ve met in the city, getting better at my job and paying bills. While not entirely satisfying in and of themselves (with the exception of the friends thing), they’re all things that need done. Routine… not all bad.

It’s a sad day for Chicago… though I’ve only been there a handful of times, there’s somehting about the ambience, the jacketed waiters who have worked there for three decades, the heavy wood interior and fantastic food and character of the place that connect modern-day Chicago to its roots, its history, the presence of which is a big part of what makes the City distinguishable from any other urban jungle you might find out there. And, sadly, it’s not going to be around much longer.