Hi Guys.
I want to begin by saying that our hearts and prayers continue to be with the Virginia Tech community. I can’t imagine what you see and feel and know, what you remember, what is missing now. Please know that your beautiful response is inspiring to the entire world.
Life is difficult beyond explanation. We live in a world where so much is possible. Great beauty and terrible pain, sickness and health, grace and terror. Tomorrow is always uncertain. Love, in all it’s different forms, seems to be the one true thing. May you know it now and always.
*********************************************************************** A quick update, and then some writing.
$100K FUND
Lauren, David and I head to Grand Rapids this week for some meetings, and much of what we’ll be talking about is $100K FUND, our 2007 plan to raise $100,000 for the treatment and recovery of young people dealing with addiction, depression, self-injury and suicide. We’re a few days away from making some exciting announcements about how much money we’ve raised, and where it’s going.
TWLOHA.COM
We are in the process of redesigning the website. There will be more of everything. Facts, resources, ways to get involved, ways to tell your story, video, music… it’s a lot of work but we’re excited.
SUMMER DATES
Still working on Warped Tour – trying to figure it all out. We’re finalizing our summer plans right now, and we’ll keep you posted on those.
NEW SHIRTS
If you haven’t seen it yet, do check out the new Australia Title shirt in the Online Store. We’re excited about the many friends we’ve heard from in Australia. It is an important place. Beyond that, it’s been really cool to see the response to the New Movement shirts, which we released last month. We’ll have a couple new ones available very soon as well. One of those will be our first RESCUE INDIA shirt, and proceeds will go to support the work we experienced first-hand on our trip to Kolkata in January.
TWO BOOKS
I am committed to two book projects at the moment. One is a visual edition of the original TWLOHA story, working with designers to bring the original story to life. The second is something more personal, some things I’m living and learning right now. To say the least it is pain and hope, and it is holding on and letting go.
AND THEN SOME WRITING…
I want to thank you for the encouraging response to the previous blog. It was certainly the most vulnerable writing I’ve done since TWLOHA began, and I really wasn’t sure how people would respond. Thank you for allowing me to be honest, and thank you always for your encouragement.
On so many levels, the Anberlin tour was an absolute success. Seven weeks of sold-out shows all over the country. We met so many people, had so many great conversations. It was more than a privilege to speak before Anberlin’s set each night, to talk about pain and hope in such a unique setting, and to introduce my talented friends.
But I also want to be honest in saying that for me personally, the last month has been a painful one, maybe the hardest of my life. My Easter morning felt more like dying than redemption. I came home to something like a death. And letting go has never come easy for me.
My dad said to me today at lunch, that for some people, letting go comes easy. But, he said, we are the holders on. It is true. Hope has always come easy for me. And dreaming. Mine is the hopeful heart. Letting go is the difficult thing. Change. These days I’m in, this is something like a surgery.
I spent last week in Puerto Rico on vacation. I have been a surfer since I could stand but I lost that somewhere in the busyness of recent years. My heart grew busy, and busyness is so dangerous in the way it quietly steals. We end up cutting the most important corners. We take for granted the ones we’re supposed to love the most. I went to Puerto Rico to begin again. I surfed more last week than I surfed all of last year. And I wrote 12,000 words, which is more than I’ve written in the last year as well. It is important to remember who we are. It is important to come back to what is true. And it is important to talk to people.
Yesterday was a significant day for me. Yesterday, for the first time in my life, I sat across from a counselor and I talked about my life. There is a certain irony in the fact that I have spent much of the last year saying “It’s important to talk about these things. It’s important to get help” – I have said that on stages and in interviews – and yet, yesterday was the first time I’ve ever done that in my own life.
I talked and I listened and I cried, and all of it felt important. And I will be back next week, and the following week… I want to understand. I want to fight for change. I want to learn to let go. I want to be who I was created to be.
I say all of this to say that if there are broken things in your life, you are not alone. And I want to encourage you, now from my own experience, to talk to a counselor. To get the help you need. It is such a liberating thing to sit across from someone who understands, and to be honest.
You don’t have to go it alone. That is the great lie, pain asking always for silence. The truth is that there are people all over the world that have devoted themselves to understanding problems of pain, and to meeting such needs. All across America, in the city you live, or somewhere closeby.
The difficult thing is to take those first steps, to be willing to find that door to knock on, and then to be willing to knock. Ask someone to go with you, to help you begin that journey. Or be such a person, one who walks with people in need.
That’s all for now. Thank you, for reading this, for being a people interested in honesty. Thank you for caring.
Oh, one last thing, my sister Emily is watching the movie Brick as I type this. Brick is one of my favorite movies. In some ways, it is my favorite. The lead character’s name is Brendan and he is not big or strong, but his heart is good, and Brendan refuses fear. The entire movie is Brendan running after love and justice – they do belong together – and even when there is nothing in it for him, you see Brendan so committed to these things, that it is as if he forgets to be afraid. It is something beautiful to see.
Peace to you.
jamie
PS: Pieces of two songs that I find comfort in:
(Dreamlife by Sleeping at Last)
Crooked mouth, quiet down
Let your fists come undone
Miscarried love will be reborn
When we sleep,
The devil’s arms are tied
The war that we’re fighting
Has already been won…
(Everything Starts Where it Ends by Lovedrug)
Wake up, you’re alive
We’re on your side
Wake up, you’re alive
We’re on your side
Wake up, you’re alive
We’re on your side
Wake up, you’re alive