One of my blogosphere friends, Vicky Beeching, put up a vlog a couple of days ago exposing the incredible wreck that is the inside of her Jeep. You should check it out… it’s pretty amazing. :o) She actually used that as a springboard for some good thoughts on living an open transparent life.

Also, I was in Nashville several days ago at LifeWork 2.0 (a really great conference about blogging and building online communities). One of the things we talked about was how to improve your blog by making it more personal. To that end, I’m going to try to get a little more posted here about what I’ve been up to and what my life’s like. I live a pretty amazing life, so you should definitely come back to my blog several times a day to see if I’ve posted anything new, because you probably don’t have any life at all… :o) Just kidding. Really.

Anyway, I was inspired by these two things to share a picture of my room (sorry about that) along with a few of my thoughts on the topic.

:: my room at the apartment - click the pic for full-sized version ::

My photographer’s eye was tempted to rearrange a couple of the things in the photo for best effect, but I resisted and what you see is exactly how the far end of my room happened to looked like (from the vantage point of my bed) when I got up this morning. (You can see it’s difficult to make it back to my closet/pantry at the moment. Getting dressed or getting food are both quite a chore.) I will say that this was captured at a particularly bad moment. Most of the time, it’s not quite this bad, but I must admit, most of the time, it’s not exactly spic and span either…

So, on the topic of transparency, I think one valid question is “how much is too much?” :o) Some people wear all of their problems on their sleeves, and it’s pretty much a self-centered thing. Other people hide everything inside, and it’s also somewhat self-centered. (“What will people think of ME?”) Somewhere in-between there’s got to be a balance where we’re willing to share pretty much anything with anyone, but the main focus of that transparency is what might helpful to others. Of course, there may be times where we share stuff with good friends just because we find it helps us to do so. However, I think a better reason for transparency is to encourage and comfort others. When we’re transparent, we help others realize that it’s ok to also be transparent. For those who feel like they’re alone in their struggles, we find comfort in knowing that’s just a silly lie. Even more importantly, if we don’t try to hide who we are, we have the opportunity for much richer and authentic friendship.

What do you think? Where is the balance between being too transparent and not transparent enough? Other thoughts and reactions? :o) I’m gonna go clean my room now…

Here’s another post that’s part of Randy Elrod’s Watercooler Wednesdays.

I recently ran across a list of famous last words on Wikiquote. Check ‘em out here.

I don’t want to seem morbid, but I think it’s interesting to see what people choose (or sometimes just happen) to have as their last words spoken on earth. Some of the quotes are funny, some are sobering, some might even make you to think a bit.

Here are a couple that stood out to me as funny or inspirational (taken from the link above):

• “Am I dying, or is this my birthday?” - Lady Nancy Astor
• “I would rather be a servant in the House of the Lord than to sit in the seats of the mighty.” - Alben W. Barkley, former Vice President of the United States
• “I should never have switched from Scotch to Martinis.” - Humphrey Bogart
• “I just wish I had time for one more bowl of chili.” - Kit Carson, American frontiersman
• “Thank God. I’m tired of being the funniest person in the room.” - Del Close, improviser, teacher and comedian
• “But how the devil do you think this could harm me?” - Denis Diderot, French encyclopedist, upon being warned by his wife not to eat too much
• “It’s very beautiful over there.” - Thomas Edison
• “I shall be with Christ, and that is enough.” - Michael Faraday
• “I’d hate to die twice. It’s so boring.” - Richard Feynman
• “Dying is easy, comedy is hard.” - George Bernard Shaw
• “It must have been the coffee.” - Jack Soo, Actor and Comic
• “Jesus, I love you. Jesus, I love you.” - Mother Teresa

Check out the longer list if you get a chance… Have any favorites? Which ones? What do you like about them? :o) Any hopes about what your last words might be?

Here’s another post that’s part of the Watercooler Wednesdays discussions about arts and culture with Randy Elrod.

This past week, I was thinking a little about the lyrics of “Mr. Jones,” a song that was pretty popular back when I was in high school. I think one reason it resonated with so many people is because it talks about our desires in a way that we can relate to.

Here are a few of the lines:
…
We all want something beautiful
I wish I was beautiful
…
Help me believe in anything
I want to be someone who believes
…
When everybody loves you, you can never be lonely
…

The truth is that there are a lot of things that we could be tempted to think might help make us happy but we often find that they can’t do that after all. I think Adam Duritz might be hinting at this with his line, “When everybody loves you, you can never be lonely.” By making such a direct statement, he helps us to really think about it and it’s clear that popularity isn’t a cure at all for loneliness.

In my own experience, when I’m in close relationship with God, I find that I’m both better able to enjoy other things in life and at the same time also feel less dependent on those other things (or other people) in order to be happy. Surprisingly (or not), another thing that can contribute to our own happiness is living a life that is centered around serving others. You could almost think that focusing on self could give you a better chance of making yourself happy. However, experience shows us that focusing on self is more likely to lead to depression than anything else!

What are the things that you are looking for in life? Is it possible that you’re leaning too heavily on the hope of them bringing you happiness? Do you have any tips for finding true happiness?

Hi, friends! I thought I’d join the “Watercooler Wednesdays” going on at Randy Elrod’s blog. It’s pretty much a way to connect blog communities together, and everyone who’s participating just posts something on Wednesday about Arts and/or Culture.

For my post today, I thought I’d just pass on a discovery I made this evening of a really inspiring songwriter/singer (yeah, I know it usually goes the other way around, but not in this case). Don’t get me wrong, Laura has a great voice too, but she started as a songwriter…

Check out Laura Story’s bio and music on her MySpace page (http://www.myspace.com/laurastory), or on her website (http://www.laurastorymusic.com/).

Had you heard of Laura Story before? What do you think of her story? How about her music?

Here’s something slightly outside of my typical fodder of things more directly about music, writing, and following Christ. Check this out… even if you’re not interested in dating, you’ve gotta enjoy that ridiculous plastic bubble suit!

Aside: I’ve been attending this church that my friend Scott (who also moved here from Michigan) found and joined a few months before I came to Seattle. I think it’s the first time I’ve gone to a church - at least so far as regularly attending goes - that believes in predestination (along with the other four points of Calvinism). That’s been a little different for me in some ways, but it’s also been good in that it helps me look carefully at what I believe and why. Ok, so maybe this paragraph is mostly an explanation of why I’m attending Mars Hill in Seattle - for my friends who are familiar with my background in the more Pentecostal side of the church. That said, I love the people and the music here, and I’ve also gotten loads of very solid teaching. Mark Driscoll is a great guy. Also, Mars Hill Church does a great job of focusing on the things that matter: Christ, the gospel, loving and connecting with people, etc. They’re also super-cool and trendy and make great use of technology… :o)

Anyway, all of that just to recommend the sermon from last week - available to you by way of streaming video from the Mars Hill website - at least until they take it down to make room for other content.

http://www.marshillchurch.org/sermonseries/religionsaves/week_07.aspx

Mark addresses four categories on this topic: arranged marriage, courtship, secular dating, and Christian dating.

He specifically addresses guys with ten points on this whole topic and does the same for the gals. He talks about the importance of investing in a relationship with someone who is compatible in many ways including topics such as: physical, mental, interests, emotional, spiritual, outlook on gender and family, character, lifestyle expectations, etc.

I think he makes some very good points. Check it out if you get a chance… I’d love to hear your reactions, responses, etc. :o)

Hello friends…

I just decided to start a blog here on JonathanPaulMusic.com…

Lately, I’ve been emailing a friend or two (which of course includes family) with recent drafts of writings. I finally just decided to open up these little periodic/aperiodic posts to a few more people.

I don’t know if I’ll get much feedback, but part of my reason for posting is based off something I’ve heard several well-published writers express. They said basically that they don’t know what is their better writing and what is worse. What they tend to like, others may not find as good, and others may like what the author doesn’t. So… it’ll be interesting to see what gets more comments, and what sort of things are said.

I won’t mind if I don’t get much feedback though, because I simply enjoy the process of writing, even if I don’t come up with anything useful from that particular session/week/month.

I hope you’ll find that the topics are at least somewhat varied, but I can’t promise anything at this point… I don’t often set out to write about any particular topic. Like one-time Hope College prof Jack Ridl says, “I just wait for something to arrive.” :o)

~ Jonathan ~

P.S. Just in case you’re wondering, I’m posting most things by the date they were actually written in my journal rather than the date they were posted here on this blog. That’s why some posts show up before this one that was written and posted on my first day here…