ahh…the olfactory sense

SSo I a few days ago I arrived in my childhood home of Orlando, Fl. I haven’t visited in 3 years and I have been so excited to come back, partly because I knew I would have enough time to explore all my old haunts! What I wasn’t prepared for was how hard hit my nose would be with memories…

… the smell upon exiting the airport: damp air and lush plantlife

… the smell of Park Ave and the reminder of all the picnics and high school memories

… the smell of the lake on the property of my childhood church reminding me of all those times in the water

… the smell of the monterail at the Magic Kingdom and popcorn at MGM

I didn’t make it to the ocean but I am sure the smell of the Atlantic would bring back a veritable flood of memories also.

I have heard before that the sense of smell is the sense most tied to memories. And I have experienced the sensation of a smell taking you back to a time and place. But on this trip, the smells brought sadness with them. For while it is nice to experience home again and to try to remember all the little moments of my twelve years here, that fact is, my family is no longer here, only one friend is left (and maybe not for long), I never get to share my childhood or my home with those that I now deeply love, and the friendships that I thought would last have all passed away. Eight years with some of my friends in middle school and high school – eight years of growing up and acting out and skipping school have faded into “maybe I will let you know I am getting married” … or “maybe I won’t”.

Above all, it is these lost ties that sadden me most. I am just as at fault as they are. I found a crew to run with in college and after sophmore year didn’t really look back. Schedules became different and we were all in too many states too far from each other. We grew apart, into the adults we would become. I guess I had always thought that those eight years would still warrant an e-mail letting me know that in fact, just as we had dreamed about in my backyard pool, you had found the love of your life.

But I am also realizing in my stay here that even if you stay close and talk regularily friendships still change. Your lives are no longer as intertwined and your experiences are no longer mutual. And maybe that’s ok. Maybe its better to allow and embrace the change rather than to fight for what was. And possibly this would allow me to better embrace the current relationships in my life that are deep and meaningful. Maybe these people don’t have to meet the standard of these former relationships of my past. Maybe they can be what they are and stand on their own. Because in all honesty, even the relationships of the past are not what they once were.

And maybe I can do the same thing with God. How could our relationship look the same as those first love years when I am not the same? His constancy remains but my instability by definition means that our relationship will always be dynamic and progressing. Maybe I could allow it to be such rather than beat myself up over my inability to recreate the past.

Maybe in moving forward, living in the present, I will find that He is already here – and so are you, my family of my present.

my friend John Lennon

So this is my first blog post.  I didn’t write the above paragraph by the way, that was my dear friend and coworker Josh Martin. This probably won’t be as polished as I would like but I wanted at least something up before school started and I lost all time for a few weeks.

So one reason I subscribe to Blockbuster Online, other than I am a movie addict, is that I love foreign films and documentaries. But at $4 a pop I am always to scared to rent movies I am not sure I will like. I recieved my first documentary in the mail a few weeks ago: The US vs. John Lennon.  I can’t say I thought much of anything either positive or negative about John Lennon before this. As I watched I learned a few things:

• I know almost nothing of US history beyond WWII. I am was amazed at how similar things are in our country right now concerning the Iraq War and what was going on during the Vietnam War. Some of Nixon’s quotes you could swear Bush plagiarized. Its creepy.
• This past year I have been a part of a group at Resonate called Activate. We were tired of being ignorant American Christians knowing that peace and justice and mercy should not be relegated to NGOs. So watching these peace advocates during the Vietnam War era I feel like for the first time I didn’t think about them as wierdo activists but people who so deeply believed in something they could not but act. I admire that they chose to rise up ut of their tv chair and fight for something.
• John Lennon is amazing. He knew very well how much media attention he had. He and Yoko very intentionally used this media obsession to get air time for what they deeply believed in: peace. The documentary shows John being willing to look like a fool because he believed that the power that he could wield was more important than his personal image. At Glorieta we listened to Michael Kelley disect the parable of the Shrewd Manager. Its a tough one and I am not sure I have ever understood it until now. Jesus commends the shrewd manager not for his actions but for his shrewdness – for leveraging his resources and influence well, for making the most of an opportunity. Michael Kelley described an aspect of shredness as “to have an eye on the future and making choices towards the future”. I think Jesus would commend John Lennon.
• The FBI was freakin’ scary back then.