Humbled

This past weekend i had the pleasure of attending the Sonshine Festival in Wilmar, Minnesota with my good friend Alan. We took a pop-up camper and camped out for 3 days and enjoyed a heavy dose of Christian music, most bands of the metalcore genre. it was awesome.

Some of you might know that i have a tendency to be judgemental, not so much to people's face, but judging of style/musical choices. i love to pick apart people at shows, even the bands, and do it from a distance. You might say that a Christian music festival is the pinnacle of targets to be judged from the youth-group leaders to the "cool" parents to the young awkward kids. This past weekend was no different, as the first night of metal bands were playing i stood there with my arms crossed and critiqued each kid's choice of shirt, or tight-pants, or dancing "style", or a band's tendency to by a little preachy, and so on. at one point during this, Alan and i got a chance to sit down and relax while waiting for the next band. We were talking about our history getting into music and whatnot, and i started to criticize some more kid's choice of style when Alan asked me a most impactful question:

"Were you always so cool?"

...uh...

i doubt Alan knew the impact of the question at the time, but i couldn't stop running the question through my head the whole night. Why did i think i was so cool? when i was in high school i started developing my "style", based off of bands that i enjoyed at the time; H20, Sick of It All, punk bands. I took a lot of criticism from everywhere, youth group, adults, fellow classmates, for sagging my shorts and wearing longer shorts that some said looked like capri's. i didn't care though, i was comfortable and confident.

and so are most of these kids at the shows, who am i to judge? here i am 27 yrs old going to metal shows with a bunch of 15 yr olds!?

so after a lot of thought i decided to let my criticism go, these kids love these bands and that's what mattered. after that first night i was really able to enjoy the weekend, worshipping with the Glorious Unseen and David Crowder, hardcore "dancing" with August Burns Red and Norma Jean, gettin' low with Big Al, even enjoying the Sunday morning church service at my wife's home church that is a little charismatic (and i've hated on a few times here and there). It was a great weekend, very humbling yet i felt so much better, and honest.

thanks Alan!

Can You Handle It?

so let me first say that i really enjoy being a part of the social-networks; Twitter and Facebook. i love connecting with friends from High School and staying involved with people's lives. i also love having an easy medium to share my thoughts/work/ideas with people i think would be interested in the content.

One of the elements i've noticed about being on Facebook is that you start to understand what type of character your friends have. it used to be that i only saw so-and-so a few times a month/year, maybe an email here and there and whatnot. it was a little difficult to fully judge what kind of person so-and-so was from those infrequent visits, but now with Facebook and multiple status updates, i can really get a feel for my friends personalities.

is this good or bad?

none of my friendships have really changed due to Facebook, but i am starting to think that they might in the future. on the negative side, i've discovered that i have a friend who is on the Debbie Downer level of pessimism. I have a friend who is not clued into the real world. i have a friend who is elite-ist, and they think they're better than everyone else.

I've also been connected to friends from the past who have great qualities, and i've "socialized" with them more than i thought i ever would. But i guess my question is this; can my friends handle the truth? if i told them that i thought they were overly negative would they break-down, would they get super defensive and fire a flaw right back at me? would that end the friendship? should it end the friendship?

I know i have many flaws, no doubt about it, but i don't have too many people in my life that will just come out and tell me whats up. apparently i'm that person for a lot of people, good or bad, i usually let my emotions show, i'm usually easily offended (apparently), and i have said things to my friends that were a little blunt. i still have the same core-group of friends that i've had basically since i got married so maybe that's a good sign!

would you want someone to tell you if they thought you were making terrible financial decisions or would you rather them mind their own business? I feel like i need my friends to let me know when i'm being distant, or offensive, or stupid, or irresponsibly, but i don't know if they ever really do tell me that. i love to critique things; music, sports, stories, whatever and i feel like i would like someone to do that for/to me to let me know where i stand.

what do you think? if one of your friends told you that based on your "tweets" that you're a whiner, how would you take it?