BreathingHope's Xanga

Hello, and goodbye.

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 13:53:10 GMT

I've re-visited all of my old posts, and am in the process of printing them out. The comments left on them have been an encouragement and challenge anew to me, and I am thankful for you who took the time to leave them.

I don't want to erase this site quite yet, if for no other reason than I feel emotionally connected to it in some way. It's like looking at pages and pages of who you've been and are no longer, even though aspects remain. I'd like to think the newness is healthy and good, too.

If anyone has any interest, I'm on Facebook, and soon will be on Facebook alone. My e-mail address is: breathinghopeatgmaildotcom (please notice that I'm hoping to avoid those website-trolling spam monsters who look for randomly written-out e-mail addresses). If you'd like to find me there, please do so - I'd love to stay in touch.

I may be putting together an independent blog of my own at some point soon, which could be fun. Additionally, I remain fervently at work on creative adventures with Three Bears Design
Please visit that site if you'd like to stay abreast of what I'm doing with my spare time.

Again, my thanks and appreciation to you, Brothers, Sisters, and relative strangers. It's been a long, wild ride.
in Jesus,
Adam Baker

Doors, their closings, and the expectation of openings.

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 20:21:55 GMT

There's a distinctive point in the movement of our bathroom door on its hinges when I know that it begins to squeal. The time-worn metal handle pulls close to the towel rack, as if by magnetism of some sort, and I anticipate the sound. If you move the door quickly, bringing it to an abrupt halt before it hits the wall, you can sort of skip the squeak. It's almost as if I feel that by swinging that door as quickly as possible, I can compress the offending noise into a smaller space of experience. I haven't been able to push milliseconds together into tinier moments of time yet, but every time I walk into that room, be it in the dark of night (with baby asleep steps away) or the soft glow of mid-day, I try anyway.

A friend of mine whom I haven't seen in a long while recently replied to my e-mail to her, a message that I'd sent her out of the blue. My contacting her was, in all honesty, more driven by selfishness than by a selfless concern about how her life has been - I had a question for her regarding the degree program she'd just graduated from, as I'm back into that morass that I never seem to leave: existential angst centered around that mysterious "next step" of where, how, why, and if. I figured she might have some insight into her "next step", or at least be able to make me feel normal about being relatively clueless about my own.

Unbenownst to me, lost in myself and my day-to-day existence as I tend to be, her mother entered Hospice not too long ago. She died this past Friday, knowing and loving Jesus but leaving my friend, her family, and others who miss her laugh, smile, and constant Diet Coke-drinking in her wake. I was struck by two things:
A) How easily we can get sucked up into ourselves, thereby being clueless about the struggles and sufferings of others around us, and B) How it seems to take impacting events like birth, death, loss, and pain to make us stop, contemplate, and take account of our lives, our interaction with God, our relationships with friends and family, and our everyday choices. Veering close to mysticism within analogy, these events seem to be "doors" that, in their opening and closing, either introduce or remove others from our immediate sphere of experience. It is the newness or loss of their presence in our lives that shakes us, oftentimes just for an aching, pivotal moment, from our inward-turned eyes. We're kind of at a loss when this happens, and I see that as healthy. It's the reminding we need, more often than not, that our cognitive structure of "This is how life is, how it works, and how it will be" is more short-sighted and unimaginative than safe and sound.

I don't know what doors He Who Loves Us is planning to open before my friend in the near or distant future. I know her to be a woman of fervor, creativity, passion, and integrity who inspires and challenges my wife and I. But, I also know her to be a woman who is a daughter, a sister, a cousin, and a friend. Education and exploration does not a hedged, protected bastion of intellectual strength make. Actually, I don't think real "strength" as our heart and soul cry out for it is to be found therein at all. She's hurting, but she's asking what and why and how.

I'm thankful for that, and am trying to do the same.

Ages.

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 19:00:30 GMT

My daughter turns one in six days. Her hair curls at the back when she's fresh from sleep, sweaty and sweet as I hold her close. She squirms continuously, always trying to wiggle her way around to face the front - I want to see the world, Dad. Don't want to miss anything. She reminds me that newness is a daily possibility. Her birthday party is going to be both celebratory and interesting, as family members will share the room with one another who purposefully work to not do so. May Jesus be glorified despite our brokenness.

I find myself wishing that our choices, behaviors, and actions would more closely align with our words and stated beliefs/desires. I could say that I wish that the choices of others did this, but this gun's barrel naturally points backwards as well as forwards. I don't desire to simply be a person who talks about social justice, loving my neighbor, reaching across denominational lines, and serving selflessly. I want to do these things as a natural extension of my love for Christ, which in turn is my feeble recognition of his love for me. A feeble recognition that he somehow still delights in, calling me his own. I've realized more lately that I talk a great deal about doing better things for the world, the people who surround me, and for the glory of Jesus, but don't actually make the application of these ideas and statements a quiet, daily practice in my life. I like others to hear me talk about them in order that they might view me as "deep", "holy", or, more simply, "a good guy". I'm selfish and self-centered that way, and I loathe the insecurity that births it. I do not desire to utilize the love of Christ for the purpose of my own glorification. Make me a man who is more like you, Lord Jesus, than he is like himself.

I'm continuing to struggle with where I am, what I'm doing, and if I'm meant to be elsewhere doing other things. I've thought a lot more about further graduate school, asking for clarity and focus for this myriad of passions He's woven into me. More school means more debt, more uncertainty, and the like. However, I'm just not so sure I can be a therapist for the rest of my life. Maybe that's generalizing, and two years in, I certainly haven't drunk deeply of the field, varied as it is, on the whole. Still, I'm restless.

Restless, indeed.

After the locusts.

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 13:12:48 GMT

Husks and bits of twig, marked with smeared grime and spoken lies.
Bound together with ever-present basketball shorts and a look in the eyes, smile-rage-smile-rage.
When your own actions result in everything you love being taken from you, it's difficult in a way that words fail. Even though there's some part that knows what you did was brave, that it freed you and the younger ones, that small island is overwhelmed by the deluge.

Oh God I'll never see them again it's all my fault I should have never said anything if I didn't then we wouldn't be apart I need to tell him I'm sorry don't you dare say anything bad about him he did the best he could someone abused him too.

Yeah, they did. You're right. But he still let the insects out. They still ate the forest down around you. Fists and wind and the hurricane of teeth and horror and pain. The old trees, and even the youngest ones? Gone. If anything's left, it's been carried away in the name of protecting, intended for replanting by those who barely understand horticulture in the first place.

We're guessing at best, and I'm looking down this long barren land, holding pieces together when I can surface myself. The mud's thick here, and as it's mixed with the ash of years, it sucks your feet down. The boots are lost even as woolen toes cling to them.

Curl in the corner. It appears to be rest, but I'm willing to bet it's preparing.
Twigs can still be used to beat back fires and storms and further loss, winging its way close and nearer and further now. I know this in theory, and all the great soothing statements tell me so.
I'm hoping, but it's a grim hope.

So this is what happens when a baby arrives.

Sat, 15 Sep 2007 02:00:03 GMT

Hello, anyone and everyone who still happens to stop by this site on occasion, hoping to see some sign of life from Adam Baker in Xangaland. It's been more than a while, and a great deal has happened, and I'm going to let you down if you're looking for ridiculous specifics and details. I'd love to give them, but there's rarely a moment or twenty wherein I can sit, type, type, type, and get it all out right now. I will as soon as I am able, but I'm finding that being a father is more than a tad time-consuming. It's an amazing, incredibly rewarding experience, and I love my daughter profoundly, so I won't do an injustice to the entirety of the last three months by trying to whip something together right now.
To be honest with you, I tend to frequent my Myspace site - http://www.myspace.com/breathinghope
- a bit more than I do this one, although Xanga did jumpstart my whole blogging obsession. When I write something of length and substance, which should be sooner than later, I'll get it up both places.
In the meantime, please consider visiting my ongoing other adventure with pals of mine: www.threebearsdesign.com

We're having a lot of fun.
Talk with you soon.
in Jesus,
Adam

I am a whore, I must confess.

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 20:19:17 GMT

The chorus always guts me, burning my eyes with tears that I know are coming even before they arrive. I listen to the song purposefully, to be honest, but I don't think it's some maladaptive, unhealthy form of self-punishment, or a self-flagellation of my heart.

I also hope and pray that it isn't sentimentalism, which is probably what I fear the most: that my life intertwined within the roots of Christ would become something I "feel" when I want to, on demand, and only then, a preset channel of emotion and "experience" that I flip to when I want to feel/look spiritual, rooted, or in touch with something greater. A flip-switch for the tears to come during that really moving worship song, for instance, the one that you know (if you're playing by the rulebook of "good Christian behavior") you should react to with mild weeping and comments after the service of "Wasn't that great? Wow." I want tears to result from something breaking within me, something that I know should be shattered and cast away. I don't want to have the tears and the twinge in my heart simply for the sake of feeling them, almost as though I'm playing some part, a role in some play in which I am a guy deeply in love with Jesus, saying all the right words, being the constant encourager, focusing on the positive alone, and having a sunshiney day.

I listen to Derek Webb's "Wedding Dress" for what I hope are the right reasons: recognizing desperation in the heart of someone who suddenly understands that everything they have done, everything they have chosen to do out of the selfishness of their flesh and bone and blood has been set aside and washed over, a cruel, barbaric sand castle reduced to smooth sand again by a wave of grace and mercy. A person whom, upon looking at Jesus beckoning for them, looks all around them in disbelief for whoever else this beautiful, wild, and powerful Lord might be calling to. "Surely, no me... you don't mean me, do you?" And, realizing that he does indeed mean, with all that he is, that he desires to claim them as his own, they run to him, pulling his grace over them like a wedding dress of pristine white. Decorum is thrown aside in a small hurricane of flailing limbs and stumbling feet, and they are there, the prodigal son who until moments before was utterly lost within himself, no way home, no way out. The whore who has given herself over to whomever would have her, selfishly pleasure-seeking in herself, realizing with crushing, agonizing beauty that this man who now holds her, his wrists scarred with love for her, is not holding her away from him in disgust and judgment.

Rather, his face is buried in her hair, his breath is wild upon her skin, and his arms, strong and gentle, are holding her against him. "I am yours, and you are mine. You have always been mine." The whisper pulls the strength of her legs from her, but she stands still, held up by power not her own. This is grace. This is mercy. This is the love of Christ.

He knows me, and yet he loves me.

"I run down the aisle... run down the aisle..."

The movement has a head.

Mon, 19 Feb 2007 21:30:14 GMT

And arms, and legs, and a belly the size of Guatemala. Babies are really weirdly shaped for a good long while, but I hear that they get more stretched out as time progresses. She's beautiful, despite looking vaguely extraterrestrial at times. Here are the newest photos, folks. Enjoy.

She's yawning in this one.

The cutest wee alien you ever did see. Yawr with the pirate eye, girlie.

I'm trying to prepare for the theft of my heart.

An announcement.

Wed, 07 Feb 2007 18:16:57 GMT

Apparently, the humor of our good Lord extends into the realm of equipping even the smallest of women with incredible powers. Most ladies I know tend to either blatantly or secretly be heroines in their own right, but I never would have guessed that God would bless Jenn and I with a baby girl capable of emulating every advanced fighting move from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (and in utero, no less). She also understands Morse Code (we tap on the outside, she taps or kicks back on the inside). Surely, this is nothing short of a signifier of a Mensa-level IQ, in addition to the ninja powers! Oh, let us hope that she uses her powers for good!

Let no one say that I didn't warn them around the end of June:

Baby girl Baker is coming, and she apparently ain't gonna let anyone stand in her way.

Good news, and reflection.

Wed, 24 Jan 2007 23:17:36 GMT

They won. Thanks for voting for my old friend and the girl he loves.

A side note, but something that's resonating with me right now: I try and be a person who reflects the love of Christ toward other people, and I often fail miserably. I can look back throughout my life and, shuddering, count the times I've either doled out some cliche saying, promised to pray for someone (and never did), or (horror of horrors) used Christ as justification for a selfish action. The particular scenario haunting me today wasn't selfish, as I remember it, and I truly believe that it was meant to occur. However, it was messy and inept, the shoddy work of a fumbling boy glowing with infatuation for Jesus, never stopping to think that perhaps the glow was a good part me seizing onto something with a fervor that was blinding me to a basic idea that Christ himself was calling me to: love others as yourself. In this case, love one other as yourself, for this parting is something painful any way you cut it. I didn't do that well, not then. I still don't do it too well.

I said sorry today for something I did at least nine years ago. It's probably been even longer than that. I hope that "sorry" is received, but I pray that it was expressed for far more real reasons than selfish ones. I don't think it was closure that I was seeking with it, a way to assuage some old guilt.

In a bumbling, roughshod way, I think I'm just asking for forgiveness.

I hope that asking for that didn't simply re-open old scars. Dang it, I hope.

Attention: please help!

Thu, 18 Jan 2007 15:29:06 GMT

Please go here (http://www.genevievenisly.blogspot.com ) and vote for Jamie Hurley, my oldest friend, and his wife-to-be, Faith, by e-mailing Genevieve (a wonderful wedding photographer I know) and voting for them. Genevieve's e-mail address is: genevieve@genevievenisly.com

Winning this wedding package would be a giant blessing for one of my dearest friends and his beloved, so I request your help on their behalf. Thank you.