adulthood, face-first

currently listening to: the pride and prejudice soundtrack, compliments of allison o'leary

currently craving: chocolate gelato

currently wearing: same clothes, day 3

(i stole that little concept from liz powell. i've wanted to do it for a while, but it felt lame. now i suppose i don't care. liz, if you ever read this, remember that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.)

anyway, how about we address the clothes part, eh? well i'm not sure why but I haven't left my house in a while, which means i've had no motivation to change. also, no clean clothes or towels with which to shower. I feel way gross, but i'm starting to move past disgusting into accomplished.

i'm moving out tomorrow. going to a place where i pay the rent. tonight is the last night i will sleep under my parents' roof because i have to. whoa.

it is a crazy feeling. by the way, i wanted to title this entry, "adulthood: balls first" but i figured some people might be offended into not reading it. if you've made it this far, you might as well keep reading (later in the post, i kill a bear!).

so i'm packing up my room and i keep getting distracted by yearbooks, pictures and journals that i forgot existed. it is strange to be able to look into the past so comprehensively. there are at least a hundred or so images of my childhood buried throughout this room. how many generations can honestly say they have such a complete record of their youths?

i'm reading about how i grew up, especially how my faith evolved (mostly because my faith was all i ever cared to write about for most of my life). i read about how God came into various dark times and lifted me out of them. i read about how girls broke my heart and how that turned into a renewed spirituality. i read about sermons that changed my life, and i can see the changes happen in the entries.

but what i like seeing most are the people. the dozens upon dozens of people that have come into my life and made some kind of impact. people like jeff yarnell and lee jost and kenny carter and john birkhead. my old small groups, my teachers, my fellow missionaries. i wonder how many of those people realize that they have been immortalized in my photos, my journals, my memories. and then i wonder how many journals i made it to.

and after i'm finished with a particular journal or stack of pictures, i'm brought back to realizing that this chapter of my life is over. in 18 days i'm going to be a married man. if i'm honest, the "man" part of that is the most frightening.

well, there's some food for thought, anyway. i need to finish packing. next time: the story of how i killed the bear.

a new direction

so apparently blogs are all the rage right now. everyone who is anyone has one.

here is my prob. first of all, my life isn't that interesting. second of all, its hard to keep this thing up when no one reads it.

well, those that know me know that my life is about to get into a crazy barfight. luckily, after the fight i get the girl and grow a lot as a person. in other words, my life may soon become more interesting. second, i will be establishing an agressive facebook marketing campaign. everyone will want to jump on this thang. probs solved.

also, i realized that i could always just make things up. so my blog will be part fact, part fiction, and sometimes both. we'll see how that goes.

if you'd like to jump on the train, now would be a good time. although, if we're honest, it is doubtful that it will be moving very quickly, so take your time.

peace, friends, and welcome to the new nowhere and nothing.

jimmy

i know, i know

ok, three readers. we need to have a talk.

so here's the thing. i love to write. it's kind of one of my favorite things.

and i know you're probably way mad at me for not blogging very frequently in the past month.

but let's be real; life has been unreasonably busy.

and, unfortunately, that is not about to change.

you see, tomorrow will be november. that's right, november.

and we all know what that means.

it means another failed attempt to write a novel in 30 days as part of NaNoWriMo.

National Novel Writing Month.

ok i'm done writing this post in one-line bits. so here's where we're at. in all likelihood, you will not hear from me here until at least thanksgiving break. i know, i know, way sad. but take heart, with any luck, the 30 day absence will bring you a novel that you can purchase at your local bookseller (laughably unlikely)!

so how do you get your fill of my musings? i never i thought i'd say it but...

twitter. yes, twitter. why? because it is way too easy and it is the way of the future. you'd best jump on now and lock down your name before you have to be @janesmith854269. i know twitter is lame but it is easy and it works. i've got this app deal on my phone that updates twitter and facebook at the same time. oh dear, i'm turning into one of those guys. don't judge.

so..... @jimmytcochran. nothing exciting or fancy, just 140 character bits of me and my experience on an every other day or so sort of basis.

peace out for now. much love.

obedience

note: listening to new RK album, and enjoying it very much.

i spoke.

perhaps this might seem odd to you, that i am talking about my own journey in this way, but hear me out.

i spoke.

many months ago i felt the proverbial tug on my heart. this tug had a voice, and that voice said, "why don't you go ahead and say something." and then God started to open doors. and the atmosphere that had once made me feel like i was breathing sulfur started to clear. and there was air there. clean air. and so i could move in that place.

i began preparing my heart. it didn't seem so hard to commit to something that was several months out, especially something like speaking at what was then known as worship jam. there was the fear that came with the knowledge that i would be speaking in front of a crowd. that was there. and that didn't really go away. and so part of me said, this is the cost of obedience. this feeling, this insecurity about public speaking, this is the cost.

nope.

then the school year began. and i had to start checking boxes and making time commitments. i had to start attending meetings. all of a sudden i was moving into that atmosphere i was telling you about before. i began to realize that the cost of obedience was higher than i had initially thought. but i was down.

and then some snags came. it became increasingly difficult to justify my involvement. i began to wrestle with my call. could it be that my initial desire to speak was born not of my obedience to the will of God, but of my own subconscious desire to assume a leadership role in a community? ought i to understand this resistance as God telling me i'm going in the wrong direction? or could it be...

that this is a test of obedience.

these ideas circulated in my head for a while, fighting, tearing, biting at each other. for a while i got kind of depressed. it was hard for me to find adequate motivation. but then i started to voice these this crap out loud. it didn't take long for my heart to find true north again. the verdict: a test in obedience.

so i hunkered down, prayed, and tried to develop the balls i would need to do the thing. i wrote me message, and on the first run-through it was about 25 minutes longer than it was supposed to be. whoops.

so i chopped it down, and a few hours later i did the thing.

and i'm not sure yet what i've learned. but i think it has something to do with obedience.

this album is crazy. go nuts.

why the next 30 days will be spectacular

september 22: the knowledge hour (topic: literature with guest expert rebecca kean)

september 26: family game night

september 29: a million miles in a thousand years

september 29: the knowledge hour (topic: psychology, guest expert TBA)

october 1: speaking at "mosaic"

october 3: kenneth's birthday

october 6: forget and not slow down (rk) released

october 6: the knowledge hour (topic: political science, guest expert TBA)

october 8: leading worship at "mosaic"

october 13: QU (sherwood) released

october 13: the knowledge hour (topic: dating and love, guest expert TBA)

october 15: relient k, copeland, barcelona at the beaumont club

take it all down

Christmas is on its way. boxing day, by rk, is a little diddy about missing christmas and what to do with the time in between boxing day and christmas eve. merry not-christmas. enjoy.

lightening post

we'll call this one lightening post because i'm going to write it as quickly as lightening flashes from the sky to the earth.

boom.

community is the answer. the question is, what is your struggle, jimmy? being back at jewell is like getting kicked in the crotch with a frozen boot made of emotions. less because of pain and more because of the whoa-what-the-heck-is-happening-to-my-reality feeling. i am a quiet person, generally speaking. when placed in a setting where the path of least resistance is keeping to myself, i will almost always keep to myself. summer falls into that category for me. my summers are spent in what some might call relational isolation, with the enormous exception of the wonderful time spent with my dearest lyndsay. being back at jewell, at least in these first weeks, tends to be more like relational freaking woodstock (thats probably the opposite of isolation, right?)

beyond the standard catching up and deciding with whom it is most important that i share my time, i am having difficulty knowing where to belong. i told myself at the close of last semester that i would let God take me wherever He saw fit. know through prayer and discussion i have a pretty good idea of where that is. now the problem is obedience. the easy answer is to find some kind of conflicting evidence. for example, lets say that i feel God calling me to play some kind of role in a particular organization. i think my flesh, in an effort to help itself avoid discomfort, is quick to point out that the organization in question has made me no offer, has expressed no interest in recruiting my help. surely i misunderstood the call.

wrong. i know where i need to be, now how to get there. do i openly force myself into groups whose influence would assist me in the infiltration of said organization? or do i start from the ground up, executing a more subversive rise to power? or is there (and yes, there probably is) a more peaceable solution that God will reveal to me in the weeks to come? patience.

patience.