A lazy morning and some time to think back

10 Years Ago
I was about to start my senior year of high school and one of the better years of life. I was active, as so many students, in building my college resume and decided to join the Young Republicans. This was a decision I look back on with smile as recently my mother, in the context of talking about politics, asked my what I thought about a certain issue and began her question with,"Jon what do you think, since you hate the government and all..."
This was also the year that I went from thinking I was something of a soccer wunderkind to being humbled. Our high school had its first year of a varsity program and after playing soccer year around for the past 7 years of my life I figured I was an easy choice for varsity. After a week of tryouts and being told 'things would be just fine', I showed up look at the final roster that had been posted outside the school on the last day of finals to find out that I was on the JV team. My world felt as it was crashing down in the time it took to find my name on that list.
Things turned out just fine in the end and I found life outside of soccer which is good since I found out in college that in the big picture to put my hope in soccer would make for a sad sad life.

5 years Ago
I had just finished my first summer after graduating college and was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I had worked the past year as a youth intern and still thought I wanted to go into full-time counseling. I began classes at Trinity Seminary in the counseling program and commuted down to Chicago from Madison twice a week. I had my favorite car ever which was a little red geo metro named Ed, or for those close to me Special Ed. It only had a radio and I quickly found that Milwaukee radio stations sucked so instead of listening to bad music I would try and entertain myself with visions of joining the theater and practicing accents that I never really got down. I remember many a strange glance from people driving along the interstate.
This was also the year that I began really enjoying middle school students and thinking maybe just maybe they were a group of people that I would love to work with for the next years of my life. It also helped that I found out I had little interest and I think gifting in the area of counseling.

Yesterday
Spent much of the day going from meeting to meeting and getting ready to start another year of working with those hormone driven kids. The evening was spent with one of my favorite men from church over at his house talking about bible studies, short term missions and the packers over a steak dinner. I mean come on is that not awesome. Then a good day was topped off with wonderful conversation that I think was meant to be a ten minute phone call that became over two hours.

Today
I am about to go for a long run with my little sister and then a series of more meetings to talk about the start of another ministry year. I love it. One coffee shop to the next and then I think a group of us are making a movie for our kick-off next week. This will likely put me in the mood to be lame and come home to watch some movies alone in my living room for the rest of the evening. I am getting old.

Tomorrow
I feel like quoting some bible verse and getting out of this one but... I am pretty sure I will be waking up late, playing some ultimate Frisbee and then heading off to some wonderful outdoor theater with a random group of 7 friends to drink wine in the woods and wonder what life could have been like if I had only joined the theater group in high school.

5 Snacks
1. Chips and Salsa
2. String Cheese
3. Ice cream of all sorts but really vanilla is the best and not because of the flavor but because of all the things you can put into it
4. popcorn and wine (this is for those lame nights alone watching movies that I enjoy)
5. any random junk food that is lying around which is why I try and avoid ever buying it


CDs whose songs I know all of the lyrics to
1. Where the streets have no name - U2
2. Dreaming Tree - DMB
3. American Idiot - Green Day (when I am hating the government as mom said)
4. All things Over the Rhine and I actually don't know the words but I still sing along
5. Get Up Kids newest album song 4 is in my head right now so we will go with that


5 Things I would do with $100,000,000
1. Give a good size and hopefully secret donation towards the new building our church is trying to move forward on
2. Give to one of the many cool organizations that provides clean water to communities without any around the world (motivation thanks to the movie 'millions'
3. Buy a house
4. Set up some way to always have a car but never have to deal with owning one
5. Set money aside so that each year for the rest of my life I could do one of the cool adventure trips I read about in National Geographic Adventure


5 Locations I would like to runaway to.
1. Banff, Canada
2. New Zealand
3. Alaska
4. Napa Valley
5. Boundary Waters (so that I can look back on this list and not be sad that I am doing none of them)

5 Bad habits I have
1. Picking my fingernails
2. Being late to pretty much everything
3. Taking criticism too seriously
4. Not making my bed
5. Wow five just seems like too many, I want people to like me (see #3)

5 things I like doing
1. Being in the wilderness away from everything with people I really enjoy
2. Going to concerts in small venues
3. Getting a good workout
4. Breaking even after that workout with a long and fantastic meal
5. Having 'real' conversations with people and learning about what is below the surface

5 Things I would never wear
1. Lederhosen
2. A sumo wrestlers outfit
3. Speedo at a public beach (or really anywhere I think)
4. Daisy Dukes - no one wants to see that
5. Ballet clothing

5 TV shows I like
1. Charlie Rose show
2. Frontline - thanks to my dork roommate who has hooked me
3. Six Feet Under
4. Sopranos
5. Sports Night - that was amazing and then they pulled it off the air

5 Movies I like (this past year)
1. In America
2. The Station Agent
3. Spirited Away - I know it is for kids so sue me
4. City of God
5. Millions

5 Famous People I would like to meet
1. Bono - It has been said about 1,000,000 times but he is such an interesting person or at least seems to be
2. C.S. Lewis
3. Billy Graham
4. Gandhi
5. Hitler - I think we often too often chalk up evil deeds to evil people who are wholly different then us but I have a feeling that that is not really true and that we are all a mix of good and evil and capable of amazing good or horrific evil and this meeting might help me understand that more (I believe this idea is from #2)

5 Biggest Joys at the moment
1. I would be lying if Mary was not one of them
2. Starting another year of ministry and seeing what God is going to do
3. Being almost done with my degree
4. Having amazing family and friends
5. Being able to be involved in things that I believe are making an eternal impact and working in community to reach those ends

5 Favorite Toys
1. The Ipod from the 8th graders - thanks you all, that was an amazing gift
2. My bike - I really like it more then my car but that does not take much
3. Laptop which I know is not really mine
4. Our gas grill - again not mine
5. My backpack and other camping gear