A Survey of 2007

Inspired by Jason's enjoyable post.

Most unexpected event:
Doubting every single thing about my life and being further from God and more miserable than I ever thought I would be.

Hardest thing (other than above):
Battling and being drowned by my laziness.
- Struggling to do a good job at work and not being able to easily change that
- Letting my musical potential slip away mostly unrealized
- Letting almost everything I want to do slip away undone

Best new addition:
I'll pick two:
1) Pure Boss practice room up in the loft of the Chima's barn. It's like something in a movie - warm wood sloped ceiling, thick green carpet, drums and amps packed in tight.. we can do whatever we want up there, and when we're tired, there's a pool table and couches down below!
2) The Piersons! I started hanging out with their family this year, and now I try to go over there for dinner and hanging out every couple weeks. I love being around younger kids and experiencing the richness and fun of a well-run family. I'm so grateful for their openness!

Best new music:
Oooh baby. Probably Mae. They have become a staple of my heart and subwoofer right next to Switchfoot. I also got into The Who. Don't listen to them much right now, but they affected my music a good bit.
I've been sucking in new music like a feind, though - just most of it not as deeply as Mae.

Biggest change:
Getting a job.
I am challenged. Hard.
I am paid.
I am tied-down.
I am being forced to conform and suck up like most people are in their first year of public school. Which is good for me.
It's an amazing blessing and a grating frustration.

Biggest thing that didn't turn out to be big:
For those of you who don't know, I had a "relationship" (we called it a purposeful friendship, since that's what it was) in the spring. I've never sought God and been met by Him so intensely than in the month preceding that. It went about a month, and then we both agreed that it wasn't really clicking, and so it ended, as well and as painlessly as I think something like that possibly could. I won't say who here, but if you want, feel free to ask me about it.

Biggest thing that did turn out to be big:
Youth Camp! I still don't really feel like I'm the person who organized and led THE youth camp. Which is good, 'cause that would fill me with pride, and it's not really true.
Planning was a beautiful, intense, focused haze, and camp was a slow-motion paradise, personally (for myself) and spiritually (for everyone else). Could not have gone better.

Best memories from an event:
Probably the Pirates game/fireworks show/Styx concert with Daniel, Justin, Betsy and other church folks. A multiplicitly delightful and wondrous night.

Thing I most respect about myself from the year:
Probably... my burgeoning music collection and appreciation.
Next is maybe my skill at driving my car.
There's some brutal honesty for you.
Those may seem trivial, but I can't think of anything else I respect about myself. Everything else sucks.

Thing others probably respect most about me:
The stuff I do with church: worship team, care group worship, college night, Fuse I-team.
I put this in, at the risk of seeming prideful (I'm not proud about this stuff), because it illustrates the dichotomy of who I want to be and who I am. The frustration I feel with my life vs. the value other people see in what I do do. Maybe I am actually living my life OK, but I have no peace right now.

Well, this is an odd mix of really depressing and then pretty happy stuff. For future reference, I am in a lonely and depressed mood right now with people leaving for college, Daniel and Ken in Utah where I would kill to be, and myself torn and shredded with doubt, frustration, hopelessness and self loathing. Those are all honest feelings, but they come and go, so there is only limited value in expressing them. And FYI, expressing them intensifies them. Literally, speaking words of doubt solidifies that doubt in your mind. So really watch what you say, and hold your tongue more than you let it go. Our words ring like a judge's gavel, and come back to speak to our heart later, so don't put a bunch of junk out there that will make it harder to turn to God with childlike faith and gratefulness.

I want to end with a flurry of things that I've remembered as I've searched my memory to come up with this post. Just indulge my desire to preserve the past:
- Nate and Sarah's wedding. I was a groomsman, which was sweet.
- Getting a new laptop
- We're going to build and move to a new house, for crying out loud! At this moment Dad is sitting at the computer working away on the plans. It is filling his life right now, and he's doing a masterful job at it.
- We got Alex in the band for awhile, and I played guitar, but it didn't work out so we're back to 3.
- We got a new kitchen table and a couch in the basement, so two main areas of the house look a lot better.
- The great Harrisburg trip with Shannon, Mike and Kayte.
- The free period in the spring after graduating and before getting my job
- I've become pretty good friends with Craig Tumino and Betsy Caprio. Nick Shuch continues to be a strangely good friend, too.
- I don't really stay at the Hoffman's much anymore in Akron. Pure Boss is more centered on the Chimas now.
- My gosh, the Rishels left and Jeremy Hetrick is our new assistant pastor! He and his family have been a joy and delight in many many ways.
- I don't enjoy food as recklessly as I used to, and I don't always want to talk about stuff like I used to.
- I started the year as a person who grew facial hair and didn't wear glasses. Now I've ditched the contacts and beardtee and am a cleanshaven person with glasses.
- Genesis series at church, and lately the Philippians series.
- Oooh man, the Dispatch concert trip! Steph's glorious glorious beach house in the idyllic Stone Harbor beach town, tons of driving, and really really enjoying the concert. Quite a trip.
- Kennywood with Steve Hoffman, Rachel and Betsy. Great time with an unusual mix of people.

I think 2007 was in 3 distinct phases - semesters actually. Spring was no-work, no-school, ending with the golden month. That phase was ended viciously with my job starting, and the summer was the newbie phase of my job, which, looking back, was very very different from how it is now. Youth Camp totally occupied the first part of the summer. The fall was settling in to my real job as it is now, sprinkled with really good times with friends - Pittsburgh, Grove City, Messiah, Villanova and Akron. The year ended with a glorious stretch of vacation - family in Chicago, then Tuminos in Akron, then Akronites here, centered around the Harvey's basement. A larger-than-life time whose memories still leave a sad sweet tinge.

OK, that wraps it up. I pray to God that 2008 has me finding God and peace and direction, be it in the job-wife-family direction or the music-craziness-doingstuff direction. Mostly I need my hard cold heart softened and Jesus Christ and His sacrifice on the cross made real to me in an abiding way.

Thanks for reading! Future self, I bet you treasure this post.

--JPB