"Allow myself to introduce... myself." (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Blog)

I am not oblivious to my own nature, neither my strengths nor weaknesses.  So, don't think that I am unaware that I can be a serious fellow.  No no.  It's true.  If a heart attack and I were to get into a Contest of Seriousness I would beat him so solidly he'd have a coronary.  (scratches head)

Here's the story.  So, my family just went through the process of taking the Meyers-Briggs test.  For the uninitiated, the Meyers-Briggs is a personality test.  Yes, if you are wondering, I failed.  Okay, kidding.  It doesn't work like that.  The test is meant to, in a general way, evaluate your personality and help you understand it better.  It is actually an incredibly effective to tool to help you gain a bit of perspective on yourself.  The results are surprisingly accurate.  When reading mine, I wondered if perhaps it was a prank played by those who know me.  It was as if the test makers had not asked me questions and evaluated me, but followed me around for a week.  (Looks over shoulder, checks under lamp for bugs) 

Getting the results was a ton of fun.  My brother, Jason, was an INTJ.  This personality type is also known as the "Mastermind" personality type.  Shocker that this is the most compatible personality type with mine.  My brother and I enjoy serious conversation.  Serious is fun for us.  Every now and then it is fun to cut loose, BUT on the whole, the most fun things are things with purpose. 

I am an ENFP.  A somewhat common personality type... for women.  ENFP males are rare.  Yes.  Shut up.  Moving on.  Our personality type is called the "Champion".  This is the El Cid, Advocate, fight for a cause kind of champion, as in "one who champions a cause," champion, not a "we win" champion.  We ENFPs are not satisfied unless we are fighting for a cause, sharing the human experience.  Yes, exactly, they bugged my room.  I will find them eventually.  For example, we ENFPs and INTJs think solving world hunger is more fun than dancing... because it is. 

I know you probably don't agree, that is why I am revamping my blog.  Apparently, most people find dancing more fun than solving world hunger.  (Under my breath: "Weirdos")   I am going to be doing my best to continue sharing my heart, keep trying to glorify God, but do so in a way that those who don't think that solving world hunger is more fun than dancing can read this blog and be blessed and entertained.  The two are surely not mutually exclusive.  I mean... (clears throat) ...it will be totes hilar and so awesome!  

So, my new guidelines are...


Keep it funny.  Yes, I am serious as a heart attack, but that don't mean I ain't never funny.  Sometimes I is.

Keep it short.  This one will be hard, as I have a penchant for verbosity.  Tis true and I know it.  I will do my best. (sheepish grin, crosses fingers behind back)  I want this blog to be accessible, as apparently most people these days have little to no attention span and struggle to focus for Wow the biggest gecko just crawled across my window.  Or is it a salamander?

Keep it real.  I am still an ENFP.  More than that, I am still a child of God.  I still want to bless you and be blessed by you, exchange thoughts,  share hidden human experience and insights, try my best to glorify God above all else. This life has not ceased being short, and we can all help each other in living more fully.  My hope is that God's gift to me, my ability to communicate, will be used to His glory.  

So, come back and keep reading.  And hit the little "like" button if you did in fact like.  Takes two seconds, and despite your ADD, surely you can manage to NICE! Email from the Prince of Jordan!  Gonna be rich.  Check y'all later.  

Key West, Fun, Purpose, and the Matrix...

Nicholas L. Laning

Just a couple of hours ago I did something incredibly uncool.  One day back from family vacation snorkeling the reefs just off the Keys in Florida, I couldn't help myself.  After doing some recon to make sure the pool was empty, or at least close to it, I broke into action.  My contraband was hidden underneath the towel hung gently over my arm.  There, in the middle of my Uptown Dallas apartment pool, I broke out my Darkfins (rubber gloves with webs between the fingers to help you swim faster, and my dive mask, and I swam.  

The differences between snorkeling in my glitzy apartment pool and the ocean were stark.  The water being sans salt meant I couldn't float anymore, and the water that bubbled into the nose part of my mask did not burn.  There was no swaying of the tides.  And, most obviously, there is nothing interesting to look at.  No ethereally painted fish or eels that remind one of some far away planet in a sci-fi movie.  

And yet, despite all of that, I found myself very, very pleased.  My pleasure has nothing to do with my pool or anything outside really.  The truth is, as great as vacations are, there is something incredibly unnatural about them after a while.  It hit me that, while on vacation, you are prone to think of yourself even more than you already do, which is quite a feat for such a self centered lot as we humans.  The name of the game is pleasing yourself.  At first this sounds great, but inside, the more we indulge, something dies.  What dies is purpose and love.  We are not meant to think of only ourselves.  God calls us to love others.  


All day I have been meditating on Corinthians 13.

1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  

2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  

3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. 

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant  

5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;  

6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.  

7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  

8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.  

9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part,  

10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 

11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.  

12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.  

13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. 

Don't skip a single line.  Read that and be amazed.  We are nothing without love.  Nothing!  We are to be kind, not arrogant or rude, to have hope, to endure!  What wonderful, incredible words!!!  Amen!!!  So much fun was had on our trip.  I saw things that I will never forget.  It was wonderful.  Yet, I am excited to stop thinking about myself all the time, and get back to the truly great things, and start loving God, and loving people.  I love to travel, and when I have thought about my travelling in the past, I have imagined it as a means of self indulgence most often.  Now, I still long to travel, but as a means to love others, to share things, to connect with those whom are spreading the gospel around the globe.  Hopefully, God will see it fit to allow me to love in this way.  If not, then so be it.  

Something that my brother shared with me really helped me in my seeing this world for what it is.  As we flew back home, he told me this analogy... believing in the Bible, or at least saying you do, and then getting so caught up in the minutia and tedium of this life, is foolish.  Imagine that you have been brought out of the Matrix.  You have been shown that your life in the Matrix is a lie.  You are a slave to this trick.  You decide you are going to fight the machines and bring about truth and freedom.  Then, when you get put back into the Matrix for your mission, instead of remembering your charge, you get caught with the minutia of the life you once had in the Matrix.  None of it ultimately matters in comparison to the truth, yet you are completely absorbed in rearranging your CD collection while the battle rages on.  Now, I am not saying this life is an illusion.  This is an analogy, and all analogies are limited.  This life is incredibly important, but it is not important in and of itself.  It is only truly important in light of eternity.  And yet, we live as if this is it.  That is not Biblical at all.  According to God's word we are to live for that which is eternally good.  That may mean not having everything go your way here and now.  It may mean next to nothing going how you want it to here and now.  It changes our view on money.  Having a ton of it, while comfortable, may be your downfall eternally, a distraction from duty (though not necessarily).  You may end up marrying someone who is not the person who makes you the most happy here and now, but in light of eternity, is the person God chose for you to glorify Him.  You may not be healthy.  You will only get to not experience everyone in your life dying if you die first.  If you believe what the Bible says, if I believe what the Bible says, then our eyes will see world completely differently.  We will be less likely to get caught enjoying what is temporary to the point where we stop fighting for the eternal.  


My hope and prayer is that God would give us fresh eyes to the truth, that we would fight for what is eternal and good.

A Waltz

Another song I have been working on has been a waltz.  I mean, it isn't a real waltz.  My inspiration as far as template is Flightless Bird/American Mouth, by Iron and Wine.  Standard EADGBE tuning.  Obviously to be played in 3/3 time.  I think it is best played melancholy, somewhere in the slower Andante range.

|---3
|---0
|---0
|---2
|---X
|---X

With this first chord, you are going to pick with your thumb on the top string on the first beat of the measure, then pluck the bottom three the last two beats.

|---3
|---0
|---0
|---0
|---X
|---X

Same thing, only the D string is opened.

|---X
|---0
|---0
|---2
|---3
|---X


Move to the middle four strings and follow the same pattern.

|---X
|---0
|---2
|---1
|---2
|---X

Slide your fingers down and add the finger to the G string.  Then, just start over.  I think it is a really good base.  I don't know though.  I am doing my best.