Challenge Accepted

(Current writing music - Everett - Destination EP, click for free download of awesome ambient music)

In a few days, I'm going to pull off the riskiest financial venture I've ever taken part in.

I'm moving into my own apartment.

"Now, Aaron, you silly, daft fool, why in the name of Robin William's beard are you pulling such a stunt? Your budget consists of gasoline money and Monster Rehabs. What are you going to do when everything is crashing down on you at once? What happens when your car breaks down and you have to repair it? How are you going to save up for your wedding? What about school? What if you can't afford to continue your education?"

Continue, ad excuseum.

Everyone that has told me anything similar to this has said it with the utmost amount of love and care, so please don't think I feel that common sense is the plague that flattened the medieval world. I just happen to have different views on the subject.

Now, how to put this without making myself out to be the aforementioned daft duck*...

I'm something of an impetuous person. If something passes my filters of possibility, I'm generally gung-ho about it. No use in doing something, as the kids say, "half-butted". And trust me, I'm scared to death. I'd be the dual-aforementioned daft dolt not to be. This opportunity, much like my musical career, is something that seems fascinatingly improbable.

Here's my two reasons:

Number one, and least important:

What's there to lose?

If I fall flat on my face, if I flub everything up and end up back in my parent's basement, what have I truly lost out of my life? I've gained experience, and my life will go on, allowing me to apply a possibly embarrassing situation to the rest of my life. If I succeed, hooray, go me, I win a bunch of bills and quite possibly an Oscar (currently in the running for Best Whining Performance While Losing A Game of MLB 2K11). Again, life goes on, I apply what I did right, improve on it, and be a wiser person for it.

Number two, and most important:

I feel God is guiding me down this path.

Whoa. I just felt the hairs on the back of your neck stand straight up as you menacingly reach for your keyboards. You believe I shouldn't toss God's supposed divine calling toward things I want to, twisting it to my own will and forcing God into my chosen path.

As it so happens, I feel the exact same way. Trust me, I've been around enough Bible college students that have gotten a mate that way, enough evangelists and Christian artists that line their holy drawers with a divining rod of a silver tongue. It's not pretty, it's not right, and it's not a viable method of planning your life.

I say with all the meekness I can draw from a willing and broken soul that this ridiculous venture is part of my ridiculous life calling. An opportunity has opened for me, and with fear and trembling, I'm stepping through it. Not as cop-out for forgetting responsibility, but with an open heart that truly believes that God has His hands in silly little things, like where you live.

It's an adventure. I wouldn't have it any other way, and I will boast in my shortcomings so Christ can be glorified through a terribly trivial life like my own.




*According to Proverbs, it's keeping your piehole closed, because it's better to have people think you're a fool than to open your mouth and prove it. But that wouldn't make a very good blog, now would it?

Dreams Will Destroy (Your Pride)

300 plus hours.

300 plus hours that we can't get back, and we can only move forward.

Sheldon and I have been going through something of an emotional roller coaster the past 12 hours. Our day started brightly enough, with UPS dropping off our new equipment. A new mic and a few odds and ends may not sound much to most, but to home studio metalheads, it literally felt like Christmas. Our minds were sharp, our hearts were eager, our ears confident and ready to hear the newest sounds that we were going to create.

We were invincible.

My voice apparently didn't get the memo.

Take one with the new microphone was a sparkling example of a failure (see also: Robert Pattinson's Twilight character). Take two wasn't any better, and within ten takes, I had stormed out the door, spitting verbs and subjects that indicated I was going to take my hissy fit to the streets of Brewer.

I power-pouted for a good quarter-mile, questioning my ability at every single step, and every step a new burden on my mind.

Was this really the dream I had given up stable footing at my job for?

The notion for which I watched my grades drop while I threw everything I had in me at excelling at this this quote-unquote "noise"?

The ministry that just days prior had come just a few words away from ending my relationship with my fiance?

It's humiliating; watching your dreams destroy you with the very gifts you've been given to pursue them.

I looked to the heavens for evidence of my sanity. I poured my broken heart out to my Creator, the God that gave me this gift of vocal destruction. While there weren't any bright lights, sandstorms, or Nazi scientists getting their faces melted, I felt peace grow, if but a tiny bit, in the core of my 5'10 being. I was still on the right track.

It just wasn't going to be nearly as easy as I thought it was going to be.

You know, God doesn't infuse the language of a people into the minds of missionaries. He doesn't shove the entire text of the Bible into the memory of a pastor. These things take time, they take perseverance, they take dedication.

Why in the world did I think I was any different?

There's an old saying, one that states that God doesn't call the equipped, He equips the called. It doesn't mean that everything will be smooth sailing just because you're called to your purpose. Missionaries must study the culture and language of the people they intend to minister to. Pastors improve on their speaking techniques and double-and-triple check their words to the flock. Metal vocalists have to learn techniques so they can take care of their voice and make it sound the absolute best for a God that deserves our absolute best.

I was humbled.

Unfortunately for me (and fortunately for future me), my slippery humility slide still had a few twists and turns left to crush what little was left of my pride.

Looking for different ways to develop my vocal technique and the recording thereof, we stumbled upon a Swedish young man that was recording his own album, in a home studio much like ours. What little of his material completely blew an ego-sized hole in our once-mighty works.

We had been so proud of what we had accomplished. We threw around adjectives and superlatives like they were money in the bank. Our confidence in our abilities told us that we were better than any of the bands in our area. Our pride said we could break down walls with naught but the power of our guitars and growls.

Within five minutes of Scandinavian shredding footage, our egos had deflated to nothingness. We sat in stunned silence for those few minutes, breaking the silence only to remark on the guitarist's ability.

Once again, destroyed by our very dreams.

Sheldon turned and looked me in the eye with an incredibly strange mix of both depression and determination.

"We need to scrap the EP."

I was too stunned to not agree. We had both been flattened by this cosmic bus of a wake-up call. Our eyes looked up after being knocked down from our self-built pedestals, and we saw the weakness in our ways. Our months of practice and writing were not enough.

From that moment on, we've aspired to change. We are casting more and more aside to chase this dream God has given us, to hone the talents He's given us. We want His approval more than earthly glory, to change lives more than we want to pat ourselves on the back.

It's a painful process, tearing yourself out of the equation and planting your hopes into hands bigger than yours.

It's so worth it though.

Our wounds are still fresh. This loving chastisement has opened our eyes, and they are fixed on the prize even more than ever before.

The audible manifestation of our dreams will destroy not only our egos, but barriers into dark places for the light to be seen.