I have discarded my Facebook & Food fast. It was senseless for me to cling on to an ideal. I do not know what I was thinking, grasping into the air and grabbing nothing, longing for the friendships I once took for granted—the meaningful ones, I could look into their eyes and feel their soul. The past has them now; as we age, we spread further apart. Digital venues only mock what we shared, for lasting friendships are neither created nor cultivated by a mouse-click. I logged into Facebook, thoughtfully considered each person, and released them into the sea of the Great Digital Beyond. In this age, who are we kidding? The global village is just a Hollywood soundstage. Our lives there are little more than server logs, an endless churning of status updates. There is no humanity, there is no spirituality—just blank stares from the abyss. It is entirely antithetical to our lives in the Spirit. I clung on with white knuckles because I wanted so much more.

Philippians 3:8-21

While there is still meat for me to chew in fasting from food, it is a discipline I am reserving for another time, when my mind has disassociated it from this transition in my life. Fasting cannot be in a place of expectations; it has to be in a place of brokenness. Fasting has never been about the highlights of life. Fasting is about humility and preparation. I could use volumes of both for I am a selfish creature cast into a dark world. I pound my chest and thunder, "Look at me! Look at the work of my own two hands!" Yet, my only value is Christ's imputation of righteousness upon me. When I live apart from that, when I recklessly abandon it in zealous fervor, blazing toward the gates of hell, everything else comes crashing down. God has beautifully orchestrated this in my life, disciplining me time after time. I am his son—though how often have I forgotten my name! I forget whose I am. Ephesians 1:4-6 / 1 Peter 2:9-11 / 1 John 3:1-3

I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Whether Jesus was crucified today or this Friday 2000 years ago, whether I eat or refrain, I do so as I love Jesus and yearn for His return; I hate the things that separate me from Him. The issues that demand the world's attention are resoundingly trivial in relation to our kinship with our heavenly Father.

A new home for my thoughts. A solace away from the everpresent bustle of the Internet—that place of "people talking without speaking, people hearing without listening."

My intention for this simple site is a three-fold approach to focus my mental energies: it (1) functions as a reservoir for when I feel that urge to write and can no longer hold back; (2) serves as a one-stop for the projects I am working on and their status; (3) provides helpful tools for others, whether built by my hands or being shaped by God. And hey, it is a place where I make myself available.

As a celebration of its kickoff, I begin a heroic journey: I am going on a Facebook & Food Fast. I see parallels between the two, how they can serve as idols in our life; I have gorged on both and felt emotionally empty afterwards. I can say I have lost friends over Facebook, and lost health over food. Life cannot be lived within the pitfalls of the intoxication of gorging consumption.

So, I take a step back to tinker with perspectives. I return to God and see Him. When I am hungry, I seek Him. When I am lonely, I call out to Him. He is the shelter for my soul.

The way to deeper knowledge of God is through the lonely valleys of soul poverty and abnegation of all things...Give me grace to rise and follow Thee up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long.

-A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God

I'm coming back to the heart of worship

-Matt Redman

When I wrote last, I was in a different place. Though I was living in Sitka, Alaska and today, Anchorage, I was in a different spiritual realm. I suppose I have lived there for years. It took a Sitka followed by quiet nothingness to evict me, not unlike the turbulence of Fall 2000 followed by the calm resolution thereafter.

In 2001, I recognized something new was coming, but did not know what it would be. I hedged my bets that it would be what the world honors. In the desert place after college graduation, my God brought me out of the darkness to discover and fall in love with Him. In the months that followed, I found what the world promised fell flat. No longer did I worship a god of white sepulchered Sundays, but one of a thriving, daily relationship, who poured joy and molded identity in my life.

The years went by.

Creeping things that didn't matter, mattered. To make room, I pushed further the only pursuit that gave me joy and identity. Further and further away, I slid it to the back. Disconnected, I looked in other avenues for my reason to be, approaches that the world esteems, while, at best, only giving casual lip service to the one who still deeply loved me from afar.

Who was I? I was everything and nothing. Everything I built up with my own hands washed back into the sea.

I am in the desert place. Fall 2000s have their waterfalls of 2001, crashing into the rejuvenating waters below. I am only on the cusp of it; God opened my eyes this weekend. He is moving and I see Him orchestrating my life, working all things together.