Doing some research finishing things up for our Sunday conversation on "Faith & Work." Landed on the Switchfoot website, of all places (shameless plug: come on Sunday & you'll see why) and ran across this quote from Jon Foreman, lead singer & guitarist in the band...

In 1991, when Rolling Stone interviewed Dylan on the occasion of his 50th birthday, he gave a curious response when the interviewer asked him if he was happy. He fell silent for a few moments and stared at his hands. 'You know,' he said, 'these are yuppie words, happiness and unhappiness. It's not happiness or unhappiness, it's either blessed or unblessed.'

This record was written somewhere between the blessed and the unblessed, between the godly and the ungodly by a few young urban professionals from San Diego. These songs are dreams and questions, bleeding together, breathing in and out- always somewhere between life and death. And I feel this tension, this distance now more than ever, like a numbing ache... deep inside. The distance between the way things are and the way they could be, the distance between the shadow and the sun. And this is where we exist: within the paradox. Living out our lives: oxygen and carbon and hydrogen and so on... This record was the attempt to make something beautiful in filthy backstage dressing rooms everywhere, trying to sing something true with a broken heart. This record was written about things that I don't understand.

And yes, there's more than a wink of irony in all of this: making music from our most intimate thoughts and selling these songs online for a dollar a pop. Singing an anthem every night about how "we were meant to live for so much more" and many times feeling like a failure; singing "I dare you to move"and feeling trapped.

Read the full text... 

Do you ever feel that way? ...'trapped in the middle'? I think I live in an almost constant state of flux. Things go well - I feel happy & satisfied, only to have something side-swipe me to my knees and humble me. Things go less than ideal - I mope around, until I realize how blessed I really am. I laugh when I think about what Mark Lowry, a Christian comedian, once said commenting on John 10:10 ("I have come that you might have life & have it more abundately.") He said that if life were like a roller coaster (motioning the ups & downs of a roller coaster ride with his hand), then 'life more abundately' the ups must be higher & lows must be lower (again motioning even greater ups & downs with his hand).

Reminds me that God is as much, if not more so, concerned with the process of 'getting there' than the end of 'arriving.' Enjoy the journey!