Still Puzzled...

OK, another list. I am bored, but again, lists are my thing. So here are my Five Favorite Voices in Music. Vocal ability was not necessarily a factor, so no Mariah, no Whitney, no... 'Tina Aguilera. No wailers(!) That said...

My 5 Favorite Voices in Music [male and female, and in order of preference]

1. Bono : Just a commanding voice that seems to be refined with age. Check out his cover of "Unchained Melody," along with "Kite" and "In A Little While" from U2's last studio album.
2. The Righteous Brothers : That guy with the tenor register set in the clouds [I mean, who really knows their names?] is amazing. I destroyed my cords trying to mimic him in the shower. The Bros. who invented "Melody" never lost that "Lovin' Feeling."
3. David Gray : His understated tenor is pained and almost haunting, on his new stuff, A New Day At Midnight. Check out "Freedom" and "Shine."
4. Bebo Norman : Coupled with certain lyric lines, his voice sometimes makes me want to weep. "A Page Is Turned" and "Where The Trees Stand Still," for starters.
5. Chris Cornell : I am a sucker for the grovely whine of this Soundgarden frontman-turned-solostar-turned-Audioslave singer . Standout tracks: "Sunshower" and "Steel Rain."

1. Lauryn Hill : She can sing and rap -- bonus. Her throaty instrument is candy to these ears, like caramel. Hear "To Zion," "Ex-factor," "Killing Me Softly" and "His Eye is on the Sparrow."
2. Natalie Merchant : I mean well when I say her breezy voice lulls me to sleep when I'm not tired. That's no small feat. "Carnival" and "Wonder" are great.
3. Danielle Young [of Caedmon's Call] : Noted her underrated chops live in concert -- flawless. "Manner and Means" and "You Created" stand out.
4. Yolanda Adams : The stately Ms. Adams possesses the greatest voice in gospel music today. Hear "I'm Thankful," "The Prayer" and "I Believe I Can Fly" [yes, that one].
5. Martina McBride : Yes, he's gone country here. I think she suckered me in with her simple, faithful rendition of "O Holy Night." Anything else she does is just buttah.

Perhaps I am just bored here at home and needed something to do [and I like lists]. So, this might be audacious of me, but that's my middle name:

JON'S TOP 20 SONGS [in alphabetical order according to singer's mother's maiden name]

1. Unchained Melody / Righteous Brothers
2. Dream On / Aerosmith
3. Worlds Apart / Jars of Clay
4. The Valley Song / Jars of Clay
5. Bridge Over Troubled Water / Simon and Garfunkel
6. One / U2
7. A Page Is Turned / Bebo Norman
8. Great Light of the World / Bebo Norman
9. Everything / Lifehouse
10. Hold Me Jesus / Rich Mullins
11. You're Here / Sixpence None the Richer
12. If I Stand / Rich Mullins
13. To Zion / Lauryn Hill
14. Freedom / David Gray
15. The Boxer / Simon and Garfunkel
16. Can't Take My Eyes Off You / Frankie Vallie
17. Wish You Were Here / Pink Floyd
18. Protest To Praise / downhere
19. Where The Streets Have No Name / U2
20. The Sound of Silence / Simon and Garfunkel

Buttprints in the Sand [thanks, Jace]

One night I had a wondrous dream,
One set of footprints there was seen,
The footprints of my precious Lord,
But mine were not along the shore.
But then some stranger prints appeared,
And I asked the Lord," What have we here?"
Those prints are large and round and neat.
"But Lord, they are too big for feet."
"My child," He said in somber tones,
"For miles I carried you alone.
I challenged you to walk in faith,
But you refused and made me wait."
"You disobeyed, you would not grow,
The walk of faith, you would not know,
So I got tired, I got fed up.
And there I dropped you on your butt."
"Because in life, there comes a time,
When one must fight, and one must climb,
When one must rise and take a stand,
Or leave their butt prints in the sand."

-Unknown

I'm thanking God for friends today. I had one of those amazing conversations with a great friend and brother in Christ last nite on the phone. It was one of those convos in which you can really see the God in someone. I love that. It is a beautiful thing when someone knows what you're going through with some struggles because he has been there before or recently. And that's just how Jesus was, is and will be: "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are -- yet was without sin" [Hebrews 4:15]. How encouraging that is. Speaking of encouragment, I also had some seemingly out-of-the-blue [or were they?] emails from friends in my box when I checked it today. In the words of Weezer, "hip, hip." I suppose that isn't really a memorable song lyric [from "Island in the Sun"], but I digress...

"But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first." -Hebrews 3:13-14

That whole passage is speaking to me right now, because encouragement is huge. I know I need it. One reason I think this summer is showing to be so difficult is that I don't have tangible community -- my group of close friends -- at my fingertips to whom I can talk about anything and everything. I've really been blessed by the encouragement, concern and just straightup listening given to me by some great friends, and they know who they are. Words can't grasp it. "A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity" [Psalm 17:17]. Thankfully, with all the friends I do have and who show me love and care, I have One who is more than enough. "A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother" [Psalm 18:24].

Today I went to the library and read for a long time after my cavity filling, which was painless and my clear, white filling is not detectable at all -- so forget I ever had one, aight? But I read for a long time -- magazines, mostly -- then checked out a few books I hope to pore over to some degree in these 2.5 weeks I have until departing for Traverse City. I also had opportunities to play tennis two of the last three days, and that was highly enjoyable. Played better than I expected to after such a layoff. Man, I used to be a bruiser on the court, but I'm getting back in it. The French Open started Monday in Paris... France! I'm sure this elates no one in Indiana but me, but I love watching Grand Slam tennis. So that's great.

I'm also getting back in the swing of actually spending time reading the Bible, getting into God's Word. As one of my friends matter-of-factly pointed out, it's the best tool for life that we/I have at hand, so why not utilize it? It would seem a foregone conclusion. Foregone conclusions are not my forte, I've found. I need flares sent up for me to recognize a sign, and God's providing that. I'm looking forward to immersing myself in the book of Hebrews, an ultra-meaty book of the Bible and perhaps the most intellectual, although I'm sure some would argue that. I think I'll be staying put in Hebrews 1 an 2, maybe 3, for some time. There's a lot to digest here. I look forward to that, as I look forward to just finding God again. As David Gray sings so honestly, "All this running ain't no kind of freedom."

I'm too tired to run, so I'm crawling back -- and I want to have the faith to know that the One who holds the storm will bring the sun.

It kills me how emotionally spent and just spiritually dead inside I have felt in the last month or two. I feel like my season of struggle and just straightup drought inside is nothing short of ongoing. This has led me to a place I think I must finally come to grips with: depression. I think I've been depressed now for about a year at least, and it's time to get help. I would like to believe that God could be the sole cure for my depression -- at whatever degree and in what sort of condition it might lie -- but I'm realizing how caring for oneself comes into play here, and I have to take care of myself. This is no copout for whatever state of mind or mood I've been in, for I believe it's been a funk that's lasted for quite some time. Much more deeply rooted than a simple "funk," really.

I haven't taken care of myself in the last year. I don't sleep, staying up until wee hours of the morn doing next to nothing sometimes. I have no clue how many times at school last year I saw the sun rise or at least heard the birds chirping when I went down for the "night" [more like the break of dawn]. I didn't play much tennis all year -- a sport I've used as a vehicle to release untold amounts of frustration and stress in the last few years. I played tennis but once all spring, not counting the two times over spring break in NC. I also eat ever-so-irregularly, which is probably one reason I've been lurking around 160lbs for the last 5 years [newflash: not ideal for someone standing 6'2"]. I can stress myself out over just about anything -- all the way down to making simple phone calls to people. I dislike the phone greatly. All the while I've not been trusting God to have my back on all things, large and small. I have completely read but one book of any kind outside of class in the last year -- and it was a whopping 87 pages [despite being a ton of truth]. I don't know why I withhold from myself the things that I love to do. It's just wack. I don't think I allowed myself to laugh this last year of school as I can and as I should be, considering how blessed I truly am to even be alive.

I'm in a really disconcerted state of mind, and I need to find peace of mind. I try to keep reminding myself that there's a season for everything -- "a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance... a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend..." [Ecclesiastes 3:3-4, 6-7]. I hope I haven't gone so astray from the Hope I profess that I have come to that "time to give up." I don't want to give up; I want to fight. I hope it's in me. Truth is, I really need to find it elsewhere and look up, because what's in me is just dead and fails me, and I hate it.

I feel like my life in Jesus Christ has just come to a point where I have to put up or shut up. Why I would go back to the burdens that I knew before, I do not know, but I think I find myself sliding ever so subtlely more with each week. I've lost a lot of the desires I had -- to be in the Word regularly [let alone daily] especially and, more recently, to pray. This has been the most painful thing to me, because as I've struggled a lot in the last two years, I have always found solace -- an oasis for my aching mind and soul -- in praying to God. To have that diminished has been hard to grasp. I cling to another verse in Ecclesiastes: "For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief" [Ecc 1:18]. If that isn't one of the biggest truths I've uncovered in the last year, I don't know what is. I'm not saying I've become some wise person, but I've become a lot more aware of things around me and about me in the last two years, even the last six months. I guess this is growing up.

I'm going to keep pursuing the Hope and the Love that I still believe has taken hold of me. I'm just so tired of the BS in my life and tired of prolonging the madness myself. I want to chase God like He chased me, because while I've never known as much struggle and ache inside as I have since I've really known God for a year and a half, I've never known as much happiness and joy at any other time either. That keeps me hanging on and wanting more. Life is a haul, but I want to see the beauty of that haul. Not just that, but I want to experience the "pure joy" of trials. I'm in this for the haul.

Manner and Means // Caedmon's Call

The heart is a lonely thing to lose in the dead of the night
The heart is a sad thing to lose in the throes of a fight
The heart is the match to the fire
And the embers of desire
To keep it burning

I am a shell of the manner and the means
Mine is a story of nothing as it seems
But when we have come this far
And still we don't know who we are
Does it keep burning?

When it's over and you see it with your eyes
Would you rather have the truth or a lie?

I call for angels to breathe holy on this rust
I call the snakes to come out slowly from the brush
I need a massive overhaul
A revival to fall
To keep it burning

The heart is a costly thing to sell in the prime of the years
My heart is thinly veiled in the usual fears
The heart is the dream, and the kiss
That there could be more than this
To keep it burning
To keep it burning

When it's over and you see it with your eyes
Would you rather have the truth or a lie?

Keep it burning...