Truth, covered in security

Be forewarned.  Usually, my posts are 98% thought out before I even start typing.  Tonight, I have a few things I want to cover, but mostly, I'm writing to get these thoughts out of my head and I'm interested to see what all comes out.

First off, yes, I know, its weird to have a post entitled with the same thing as the motto of my entire blog. For the musical reference, go here. However, that's the whole point to this post.  I don't know if I can legitimately keep calling this blog "Truth covered in security".  Things are certainly no longer covered in security.  When I first started, it was just because it was a fun thing to do and a way to keep friends updated because we didn't have facebook and I was in grad school and everyone else was back in Chicago.  Originally, it was named after Local H (who else?) and called "I'm all wrong and all the kids are right."  In the last few years though and especially once I started this again in Indiana, I've been very forthcoming with a lot of things.  I can trace this back to people like Heather and Steph - people I probably shouldn't be good friends with because we don't have a tremendous amount in common, but I dearly love them both like sisters because they're such good people.  The thing I admire about them the most is just how open and honest and real they are and they never held anything back.  They were upfront with their emotions and their struggles and their joys and it was so incredibly refreshing because they didn't try to be anyone other than themselves.  Couple that with the breakthroughs I had in my men's small group at URC where there was a similar feeling and that's something I knew that I had to have.  I had to become open out everything with me.  I don't want to live in shame of anything.  Shame can not win if you do not allow it to fester by hiding it and denying what you've done.  First off, let me say, I don't believe shame is a bad thing.  Shame is the moral equivalent of pain as it just lets you know something is wrong.  If you take care of it, seek forgiveness and learn from your mistakes, the shame should not haunt you.  Once you learn that, the release of shame just becomes so incredibly freeing that its beautiful.  This is what I've set out to do and I think I'm doing it fairly well.  I think this speaks to my spiritual maturity that's occurred over the last few years as I've even further established who I am.  It says something to me when I can put things on here that I know are going to be unappealing to my mom, just because she's the one person in the world who I'd currently want to have believe that I'm perfect.  If I can put that stuff out there, then I know I'm not holding back.

That said, this blog will never just become a free for all.  I try to only write about my thoughts and opinions and experiences and sometimes that means I write about those close to me or even those who I interact with on any given day as they shape my experiences.  Mostly, I try to keep from ragging on others and with a few regrettable exceptions, I definitely stay away from doing that to friends. (Yes, I know which post you're thinking of and it's now been edited.)  I don't know how long this blog will even last.  While its just me, it'll certainly continue to exist because its an easy way for me to reach out to my support system which is spread out all over the country which is great for traveling, but pretty sucktastic for actually being a support system.  If I get married and have kids and life gets really busy or if my wife becomes uncomfortable with this blog, at the least it would become password protected or even possibly just given up completely. I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Finally, I started up church league summer softball yesterday.  It was great to get out there again even though I only know one guy on the team and he's the sports ministry director at our church.  He's a really good dude though and I look forward to getting to know the other guys better.  The game was a blowout because our team doesn't suck, but we were placed in the bottom league because we were new and the leagues our Euro-soccer style where you have to earn your way up.  I started off poorly by popping out to catcher and lazily flying out to right in my first two at-bats.  I also botched a soft line drive by timing my jump incorrectly early on.  It was just early jitters though.  I ended up playing decent defense but that'll improve as I get back in the swings.  After those two early outs, I ended up reaching base the other seven times I batted including a couple of home runs (one was a four base error) and a walk.  I hate walking but none of the pitches were close.  The only disappointing thing about this league is that once again, I don't think any of the other guys on the team are single, which isn't a big deal, but I'd just love to happen some single guys to connect with.  I mentioned a possible singles ministry to my pastor as I was interviewing for membership at my church on Sunday, so maybe something will eventually happen with this, but I'm not holding my breath.  Additionally, playing church league sports will be part of my summer goals, which will be the next post that comes up once exam week ends in a few days.  I can't wait until my summer goals are simply 1) Be an awesome husband. 2) Be a kick-ass dad.