The things that we get attached to in this life often lead us to folly: an idea, or concept, or passion, or principle, is nothing if it is static or we wish it to be static…..never changing.  When I hold on to old ideas of someone or something I get tied down and the tension begins.  “Why won’t things be the way I want them”, I ask myself or at least I think that is the question and frustration deep inside the brain.  The soul moves and adapts and accepts like water and when I am at my best I remember this.  I don’t hold on to old hurts, I don’t judge people for who I think they are based on who they were, I bend and sway when the wind blows cold and hard instead of running full force with rusty sword in hand into it (this only leaves me worn out and tired and usually broken) and most importantly I don’t close out the light inside of me and hide it away under some false sense of protecting it…..it only thrives and bursts when I let it burn….unabashed, unprotected, reckless and without so many strings - ropes - twine holding it down and in.

5 a.m., Be Still, Five A.M., God\, christianity, faith, life, peace, prayer, religion, spirituality, trent yaconelli, trust | 1 Comment »

The band and I are off on a radio tour to help promote the CD.  If you are in the area of any of these stations please call in and let them know you appreciate Five A.M. being played on their station.  Thanks all.  I will get back to writing soon.

Monday May 12 Eugene OR 11:30AM KRVM live on air

Tuesday May 13 Portland OR Noon KINK live on air at 3:30 p.m.

Wed. May 14 Seattle WA 11:30AM  KMTT (The Mountain) live for staff

Thursday May 15 Spokane WA - Sand Point ID 2:00 KPND live on air

Friday May 16 Kalispell, MT  11:00 KVRO live on air

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Got a few emails regarding writing more to be honest I am just plain too tired these days.  I have a lot I would like to write about but with the band taking off right now and life always taking off it is hard to find some quiet time when I am not exhausted.  I will try and get something posted this weekend.  The Be Still video is still on, it just got postponed as the band does some Radio promo touring and work on promoting the new album.  Should be back writing and running on nothing but coffee next week. 

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A few weeks ago I finished playing a gig at the Rockit room in San Francisco, walked off the stage, got in my car and headed for Yreka to attend a funeral.  As I drove through the night I was listening to some of the last talks that my dad gave for possible use in an upcoming book my family is putting together.  My father had a few stories about funerals.  Funerals he gave for people who had been hurt and damaged by the church and never returned.  One story was of a woman whose son committed suicide and the church refused to do the service or let him into the cemetery.  She had attended the church her whole life. My Dad began that service by apologizing to the woman on behalf of the church and said she was right to not attend anymore because it was not in line with anything that Jesus would have done.   As I drove into the wee hours of the morning I remember shaking my head and thinking, “who are these people” and what is wrong with them to believe they had the right to exclude people from God’s grace.  Around 4:30 a.m. I pulled over around Mt. Shasta to get a hotel.  I couldn’t find one available or at a decent price so I moved on.  I knew of a Motel 6 not too far so I decided to go there, right before I got there I saw another hotel off the freeway and for some reason cut across the lanes to exit even though it was probably too expensive for a 4 hour stay.  I walked in to see a very tired looking woman with dark circles around her eyes sitting behind the desk.  I asked her about a room and she said they were full but then said she had a suite and would give it to me for cheap so I took it.  When I told her my name she looked up and said, “Any relation to Mike Yaconelli?”  I told her yes and then she began to say some very nice things about my Dad but she also began to speak about her life.  She said she was involved heavily in the church, doing missionary work, training missionaries and that her husband had talked about being a pastor but then he got sick.  He has had 15 surgeries and then recently spiraled into a depression.  The Church she said has run from them since that happened and now her kids don’t want to have anything to do with church after seeing its treatment of their father.  I understood now that the tiredness I saw on her face was not from lack of sleep but from a weary heart that has been pushed and cast aside.  I looked at her and said, “I am so sorry.”  She looked away and then I said again, “no really I am so sorry that happened to you.  It is ironic that the people that should be running towards you in your time of need are often the ones that run away.”  She looked away again and then began speaking of my room and how to get there.  As I went up to my room I felt I needed to do more so I wrote this letter to her and sent it to the hotel.

A ~

~For some reason I felt compelled to write you.  I feel that I came across your path for a reason so here it goes.  When Jesus was alive he had many problems with religious people and those who spoke for the church just as you have but remember they do not speak for God or Jesus.  Anyone who claims to has just proven that they are in fact not.  The beauty of Jesus is that we do not need the church to find him, speak to him, listen to him and follow him.  Do not let the people who claim to be the gatekeepers push you off the path or darken your heart.  Their only intention is to not go in themselves and to keep everyone out as Jesus himself pointed out.  I believe that Jesus would be disappointed with these people who use his name in order to exclude others while exalting themselves but that is not for us to know.  Our only goal in this life is to stay true to our hearts and seek out the soft whisper of God where ever that may lead us.  Your children are right to not want to attend that church because their hearts have told them the truth….”this is not how spiritual people behave.” They understand that the real Jesus would not behave in this way.   Do not mistake the Church or these gatekeepers as God’s megaphone.  God needs no megaphone to reach you, he is already present in you and it is underneath the noise that you will always find him.  I wish you, your family, and your husband peace and healing during this time of hardship.   ~

Maybe it is not my place to apologize for the actions of others to be honest I really don’t know.   I think it is our job as people who are struggling to follow the voice to reach out and help our fellow travelers when they get knocked down because when we do than maybe we open a window in our own souls for God to shine through us.

5 a.m., Five A.M., God\, Jesus, Uncategorized, christianity, faith, life, mike yaconelli, peace, prayer, religion, spirituality | 4 Comments »

“ Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste and smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis, all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”

~ Frederick Buechner

faith, life, peace, prayer, religion, spirituality, vocation | 3 Comments »

The will of the One who sent us is that we be the one who was sent.  What we do is meant to be lived out of the context of discovering and becoming the person we are.  ~ Robert Benson

 How many of us have let the world, society, our friends, our family distort who it is we really are and thus not fulfill the will of the One who sent us.  Underneath our skin our heart remembers the instructions it was given.  It tries to tell us by jumping out of our chests when we do something that makes us feel alive and gives God pleasure.  At what price have we all sold ourselves and the chance to please God when we waste our time with Jobs we hate, places we can’t stand to live, relationships we are too lazy to leave or fix, things that we need to say that we leave tucked away, or opportunities that we are given to grow and burn bright that we ignore?  At one point in my life I sat in my apartment too afraid to live, too apathetic to try but then I felt God’s pleasure when I played my guitar and sang and I let the quick beating of my heart begin to lead the way.   I wasted quite a few years that I will never get back but the important thing now is that I have begun and it is never too late.  Every moment contains the chance to begin again.

As you read this in your office or home take a moment to look around you, take a moment to search the dark corners inside of you and ask yourself: When do you feel God’s pleasure and what are you prepared to do right now in this very moment to pursue it?

5 a.m., Be Still, God\, christianity, faith, life, peace, prayer, religion, spirituality, trent yaconelli, vocation | 2 Comments »

I had a close friend of the family pass away over the weekend.  I head home on Thursday to the funeral.  It is strange thinking that we are all marching towards this cliff.  Each generation slowly moving towards its end as bit by bit people drop off until finally there is no one left but the generation behind us.  I was reading Robert Benson’s book Between the Dreaming and the Coming True and he was speaking of how we have come from God and will return to God.  So what is the point?  The point that he makes that totally rings true to me is it must be because we are here to learn something.  If you believe that God knew us before we were born and whispered our name and thus our life into existence than you believe that before you were…..you were.  So why are we here?  If you are totally in God’s pressence and Grace than how can you understand Grace, Mercy, compassion, love, sorrow, pain, peace, loneliness…etc.   How can we understand ”hello” if we have never said good-bye. We are here to learn and experience this separation from the One so we can truly understand. 

I think of my sons.  Before I had them I had some sort of concept of Grace but not really.   I thought I really understood love when I married my wife but marriage is based on both unconditional and conditional love.  I never really understood loving someone no matter what and without conditions.  I don’t think I ever would have if not for my children.  The moment they were born the lesson began.  My depth of understanding love and the reaches of my love extended beyond.  Suddenly I began to understand God’s grace for us because I recognized it in the love I have for my children.  No matter what they do in life I will love them absolutely even when they do something I do not approve of because it is a love not based on conditions.  How could I have ever had some concept of the grace given to me if I had never experienced giving it myself?  We are here to learn.  So as many teachers have said look  at each experience of sorrow, joy, loss, laughter, grief, anger, peace, and love as a new chance to learn and broaden yourself.   What a difficult but wonderful way to look at the world and each experience that comes into our lives.  Looking at each moment, emotion and experience and asking, ”what does this have to teach me.”   The world is nothing more than a giant classroom but one in which can either greet each day ready to learn or as another chance to ignore by accepting the rules meant to distract such as “he who dies with the most toys wins.”  The lessons we are here to learn are always arriving, always being presented to us.  It is up to us to decide if we are ready to grab our notebooks and pencils and be students.

5 a.m., Five A.M., God\, Uncategorized, christianity, faith, life, peace, prayer, religion, spirituality, trent yaconelli | No Comments »

Some updates for the Be Still video.  First I would like to say how wonderful and amazing that so many fans and ML blog readers want to be apart of this video.  We are feeling like this thing could really be big if we do it right.  I thought I would do an update because many of you have been emailing.  Right now we are putting together a list of suggestions for the signs and people who want to be a part of the video.  We are going to be setting up days for people in certain areas to meet with the directors and camera men to get shots and we will also have many of you do video shots on your own.  For those of you on your own we will contact you with specifics: sign height, camera angle, rez…etc.  For those of you who have some ideas or issues that you would like to speak to the directors please email me or  the two head directors Don Lewis and Dustin Gould.  dlew022@gmail.com  and dcg47films@aol.com 

 We are trying to have the video shot and edited by the end of April.  We are also changing the format to say, “Be Still for…”  For example “Be Still for Hope”  “Be still for Peace”  “Be Still for those without a voice”  It makes it more universal.  Once again, SUGGESTIONS are still wide open and so far the band, the directors and myself love all of the suggestions coming in so keep them coming.  I will update again next week when we have a concrete deadline.  Thanks everyone.  Oh yes, and please pass this along to anybody you know around the world and the country who have video cameras and would be willing to shoot something for the vid. 

5 a.m., Be Still, Five A.M., life, music, music video, peace, spirituality, trent yaconelli | 3 Comments »

My son started T-ball last week.  He is 4, turning 5 in a few days.  I sat out on the grass watching him run out to work on catching flys with one of the coaches and my heart sank just a little bit as I realized……now it begins: the competition, the sizing up, who has the best arm, who is the fastest, who can hit, who cannot.  The world would start to influence my son no matter what I did or did not do from now on; bit by bit.  As I sat and watched I observed a kid probably the same age as my son get hit in the face with line drive.  His first instinct was to run to his dad who was out in the field as an assistant coach but then one of the coaches began yelling, “nice stop! Way to go! Now pick it up and toss it in.”  The boy stood there for a moment and then reached down, picked up the ball, spun around and fired it back in.  “All right way to go Champ!  Walk it off!  Way to take one for the team!” The coach yelled out.  The boy clearly hurt was looking towards his Dad, looking at the ground and then back to his Dad.  He wanted to run to his Dad and be held - to be comforted for a moment but the world was already beginning its lesson to a young boy, “Hide your pain.  Never show weakness.  Stuff it down.”  The boy stood for a second longer staring at the ground and he began to shake.  His Dad, who seemed just as confused as what to do also, finally seemed to say, “screw it” and walked straight to his son and hugged him, asking the boy if he was ok.  The boy embraced his dad and cried for a while and then went back to playing.  That was all he needed.  Just a moment with his Dad.  Just a moment when someone said, “hey are you ok?” and showed some compassion, some concern. 

This is who we should be as spiritual people…as people who believe in God and a higher power.  We are the people who are not interested in the lessons being taught by the world, in fact we disrupt it.  When we see pain and suffering we walk towards it, we embrace it, we hold a person’s hand when there is nothing to be said and we love no matter what.  We ignore the noise of the world telling us to stuff it down, to hold it in, to smile when we feel like crying - to ignore, deminish and side step.  We speak the truth but more importantly - MOST importantly - we live it.  This little scene that played out on the great baseball field of life happens every single day of every single moment with our husbands and wives, lovers and friends, children and family…etc.   And in each of those moments we are given a chance to practice.  We are given a chance to embrace.  We are given a chance to not only save but to be saved. 

christianity, faith, life, peace, prayer, religion, spirituality, trent yaconelli, trust | 1 Comment »

I was sent this talk by Jill Taylor from John over at Microclesia.  John was at this conference and said this

“I was at an amazing conference last week. A neuro-scientist named
Jill Taylor gave a short talk that was probably the most profound
depiction of the “deep right brain experience” that I had ever seen
or heard. Please check this out when you have 18 minutes to sit and
watch without interruption. After her talk, the vibe of the entire
conference changed - people were more open, deeper, clearer. Truly
remarkable. This video just went on-line today. There is an essential
message here for all humanity on acknowledging just how closely
connected and related we all are. Very spiritual, very empowering.”

This talk totally caught me off guard as I didn’t know what it was or what to expect but it is incredibly beautiful and moving.  If you have 18 minutes please watch it ALL the way through.

God\, christianity, faith, life, logic, peace, prayer, religion, spirituality | 4 Comments »

 There is this tiny space inside of us where God lives.  Some of us spend life times trying to find it, care for it, nurture it, protect it.  Others stumble up on it or know its location like the know the way to their own home.  Still others try to ignore it, push it down and away or deny that it even exists.  The problem is it does exist and we all know it or have felt it underneath the miles and miles of cells and tissue that keep us apart.  We are all like seemingly hard chalky tablets laid out on bare tables.  We can sit here letting the air and time slowly slide its fingers across us until we slowly begin to chip…crack….and disintegrate or we can jump into the water and let our bodies, our walls, our tissue, our pride, our malice, our pain, our sorrow….dissolve and become a part of something greater, something bigger.  The key is not to believe in God the key is to dissolve in God so there is no lines or boundaries.  The path is to jump in and just like a tablet in water to sink to bottom but if we do the work, if we begin to look for God everywhere: piece by piece, bit by bit, molecule by molecule we will dissolve and then we will grow light and float because we will see that everything even ourselves is already connected in one.   Our bodies, our minds, our souls will mix and mix and mix until we dissolve and all that is left is water and light.

Five A.M., God\, Uncategorized, book, christianity, faith, life, music, peace, prayer, religion, spirituality, trent yaconelli, trust | 1 Comment »

I have been very weak on posting for awhile so a few updates.  First: the video for Be Still is definitely being shot but you have not missed the deadline as people have emailed me to ask.  Please continue to post your suggestions or email them to me. 

 After a long break after our CD release Five A.M. will be playing an acoustic show at the Black Rose in Santa Rosa this FRIDAY March 14th.  This is a laid back irish pub with good food.  Robert Ethington opens and we go on around 9:00 p.m.

 I wanted to give a shout out to the Blog Do Die In Diem or gartenfische.  she has sent alot of people over to my blog to check out some of my writing and encouraged people to  check out the music but MOST importantly she is a very talented writer and thinker.  I try and check out her blog daily.  If you get a chance please click on her blog her posts are always insightful.

 I have been working on a few different thoughts and posts that I will post this week. 

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The band has been working up a video project for the song Be Still.  I think we are just about ready to start filming but there is a component that we would love for you all to get involved with if you feel inclined.  The video is going to be a montage of clips of people being still and holding signs.  The concept is everybody is willing to be active for something but are people willing to Be Still for?  What are people willing to calm their hearts and minds for and focus their attention/thoughts/prayers on?  Each sign will say, “I am Being Still for…” and then it would say whatever they are being still for such as peace, those without a home, jumpers (filmed on Golden Gate), the rain, those who have lost a child….etc.  We are going to have cameras across the country getting clips of different people in different locations getting 5 to 10 second clips.

So where do you come in?  1. One if you have something you feel passionate about but do not have a camera you can either post a comment with your suggestion of what one of the signs should say and a suggested location if that is part of it.  2. You could film yourself Being still with a sign and send it to us (you might want to email me so we can tell you the deadline and format), 3. you could volunteer to be one of the people we film whether you have and idea for a sign or not.

The more we work on this the more ideas and camera people keep coming in.  Post your suggestions and thanks.

Be Still

5 a.m., Five A.M., God\, Uncategorized, faith, life, music, peace, prayer, religion, spirituality, trent yaconelli | 21 Comments »

Today is the anniversary of the death of my friend Eric David Funderburg.  I am still trying to live up to the gifts he gave me during his short time in this world.  This is a repost from when I started this blog. 

    I remember my Dad and I loading up the Bronco for my first year of college.  As we were driving up the onramp on I-5, I had this horrible pit in my stomach.  After months and months of being excited about leaving home and being on my own I realized in that moment that I was totally and completely lost.  I had no idea who I was and what I wanted.  I was going to college because that was what the voices around me told me I should do.  I didn’t have any better ideas so why not?  I had picked the college I was going to because my best friend said, “dude, we have got to go to college together. So I went.  I moved with the pull of the world instead of finding my own voice in it.  It is so easy to slide into the stream of our culture because to turn against it or follow the fork in the river brings sudden and immediate disapproval.  At the time, I knew nothing else, so I allowed myself to be moved by the forces around me.  I grew my hair long, grew a beard for while, bought a whole new wardrobe at the second hand store, looked for things to be angry about, and took up drinking.  These were all shallow ways of trying to find the answer to a question that I had never thought to ask: who am I and what do I want?  Instead of asking the question and listening for an answer I wore the uniform of the college student.  I paid close attention to the voices blasting at me from the megaphone of the world in Dolby digital surround sound.  In high school you behave this way and in college you can now behave this way.  Organized-sterilized rebellion is ok.  Listen to music that is marketed to show people you are unique instead of being unique.  Basically sow your pre-approved wild oats before you get down to business and by business they mean:  Career, spouse, home, kids, stuff, income and becoming a consumer.
     Throughout my first year of college I took the classes you were supposed to take and learned the things that I was supposed to learn. However, in my dorm room was my best friend Eric, and he lived differently.  When I was 17 Eric and I were walking to guitar class at Yreka High School when he said, I don’t think I am going to live past 21. I was 17 and his best friend and didn’t know what to say accept, you’re crazy.  You will probably live longer then me. But he reiterated that he wouldn’t live past his 21st birthday.  I didn’t like talking about death, and I certainly did not like someone I loved saying they would be dead in a few years.  So over the next few years I tried to make sure we didn’t talk about it.  Looking back now I realize that Eric had been given a wonderful gift.  He knew that life was short.  He understood that he was not invincible and that death was not something that only happened to grandparents.  But did he live his life depressed or in some insane Seize the Day- Disneyland-extreme?  No.  He listened intently to his own voice, his own calling and was never persuaded or pulled in by what the world wanted for him.  He spoke of God often but the God he believed in was a reckless loving God who pushed him to love big and brash and leave the comfort of the well traveled road.
      Eric was the first person I knew who lived deeply.  He moved through the world free and unaware of the restraints that were trying to be put on him or the rules he was breaking.  He was this big 6 foot athletic guy but he wore his heart bravely on his sleeve.  When my divorced parents had a horrible fight I drove to his house an emotional mess.  I sat on the floor of his room and began to tell the story frustrated, angry and heart sick.  The words began to tumble off of my lips like ice from a glass but as I spoke he came over, sat next to me, and said nothing.  He reached out and held my hand and wept. The world stood still.  He didn’t worry about how it looked, he didn’t worry about slipping into the sadness of that moment, and I felt my shoulders drop and my own tears being given permission to fall.  Eric simply felt the pain of his friend and because the spirituality he felt came from within and not from a mind full of religious rules and doctrine he did not think, instead, he let the language that only the heart knows speak for him.
     Eric was alive in every sense of the word.  He took scuba diving classes, Karate classes, roller blade hockey lessons, and bought photography equipment because he had a child like interest in those things and wanted to know everything he could about them.  He was a spokesman for DARE and SADD.  He signed up to be a Big Brother at a local church when we got to college.  All the while I watched him bounce from class to class thrilled with the things he was learning but it wasn’t enough.  What he really wanted to do was fly.  I had known Eric since we were kids and flying was always on his mind.  So half way through the year Eric began investigating how he could become a helicopter pilot.  Once he found out he did not have enough money to do it he looked into the military.  Midway through my first year of college he joined the Army to become a pilot.  He focused on his tests and passed with flying colors.  He learned everything there was to learn and the thing was he was happy and truly free.  He did not worry that his parents and I thought he was crazy.  He wanted to fly so that was what he was going to do; all the talk of having a college degree as a fall back seemed absurd to him.  “Why spend my time here when I know what I want to do,” he would say with a big grin on his face.
     At the time, I wished I had his courage but instead I was in the process of sweeping my voice and my dreams of playing music under the carpet of impracticality.  Eric never paid much attention to the voices of his parents, me and society trying to reel him back in.  He was in touch with a voice that was connected to the river -connected to the spirit.  It is my belief that as Jesus and other great spiritual teachers have said the kingdom of God is within you.  It is my experience that the spiritual life exists not in books or sermons but in ourselves.  Eric understood this and like a vigilant gardener he cared and nurtured this voice until listening to it was like breathing.
       Eric left college to attend flight school and became the youngest flight officer in the Army at the time.  I transferred to Sonoma State University to pursue a degree in mediocrity with a minor in life-safety.  Eric and I stayed close writing letters and visiting when he was not on some backwater Army base in the south.  During my third year of college he came to see me in October and then three months later in January he gave me a call from Honduras.  He seemed tired but I could tell it was important that we spoke so we talked on the phone until there was nothing left to say.  The line began to crackle and pop so we said our good-byes promising to talk soon.
       During a clear day in February I remember being happy to be alone as my scooter raced up the expressway toping out at 35 mph.  I was heading back to my apartment to sit and read or maybe play some video games. I didn’t feel like being around people so I decided to head home before my next class.  It was doubtful on such a nice day that I would make it to my 4:00 class.  I zipped into the parking lot, turned off the engine, and pushed my scooter up into my 10 x 10 “backyard.”  I could hear the phone ringing from inside as I in one fluid motion dropped my backpack on the floor and threw my keys on the counter.  I could hear the TV in the other room and see the feet of my roommate’s girlfriend. Strewn on the ground were the carcasses of Cheeto bags left to rot in the beige light of our thinly insulated walls. “Crap” I thought.  She had been there for weeks, showed no sign of leaving, and was now between me and video game glory.
I picked up the phone to find my father on the other line. This was a surprise because my father was notorious for avoiding long “check in” conversations on the phone.  “Hey DAD” I blurted out as I immediately launched into a discussion about a class I was taking involving religion.  My Dad was well known in the Christian world as a speaker, company owner, minister, and writer.  Christianity was his favorite topic so it was guaranteed to keep him on the phone.  You had to move fast with my Dad; if you didn’t keep him focused you could hear on the other side of the line his attention melting away; magazines being flipped through, lawn mowers being started, speeches being edited.
My Dad cut me off, “Trent, hold on.  I have some bad news.  There has been an accident.  I don’t know how to say this…..but..It looks like Eric has been killed. My legs shook.  Thousands of thoughts, memories, and images of Eric crashed against my eyes as I felt my stomach turn and my mind disconnect from my body.  “Wha…..what….?” was all that the air left in me would allow me to say.  I lost my voice.  I felt the cold chalk of the wall against my back as I slid down.  I couldn’t understand what was happening.  My mind was running from station to station in my head trying to put out fires, trying to get my legs working again but my body rebelled and hit the ground.  I could feel the beat of my heart in my throat as I squeezed out another, “wh….what?”  My Dad explained to me that Eric was the co-pilot on a mission and they had lost their tail rudder and spiraled into a lake in El Salvador.  I started crying.  I wanted my father to fix it.  I wanted him to make a few calls and get everything sorted out.  I wanted him to speak to God and point out that this was not part of the plan.  Eric had lived a spiritual- moral life.  There must be some sort of mistake.
        My Dad explained that he needed to speak with Eric’s parents Joe and Jan and would call me back.  The phone went silent but I stayed on the ground staring at the phone as if it were a puzzle; trying to find some new meaning or some new piece that would put everything back into place again.  Eventually I walked up the stairs to my room and sat on my bed.  I slowly looked around as my head spun and spun and spun and before I realized what was happening, I was destroying everything.  It all seemed like bullshit.  Everything in my life made me sick: my posters, my pictures, my clothes, my furniture…….everything.  I dumped out my drawers, tipped over my dresser, tore my clothes from their hangers and finally crumbled to the floor weeping, “Please don’t take my friend away.”
     Hours later still in my room, I felt as if I was awakening from years of slumber after some fairytale curse. I rummaged through the wreckage, found a bag, stuffed some cloths in it and walked out realizing I would never pass through the doors of my apartment the same as I had hours before.  The air felt heavy, the sun seemed unforgiving as it glared down at me.  I looked up to the sky as if looking up from the bottom of a pool.  I could see the surface above me, but I now knew the surface was like childhood; I could never go back.
When you have a soul-shaking event happen you can do one of two things.  You can learn from it and use it as a chance to inspect your life or you can use it as an excuse for all of your problems and continue distracting yourself from living a free and spirit filled life.  After locking myself away in an apartment for a year after Eric’s death I started to look at things differently.  I had changed, and the seed of that change began to rumble in the pit of my stomach.  I began to pay attention to my own internal signals, and I realized I was living a safe life, following the guide posts left by the world, and rarely ever being quiet or standing still.  I noticed something else.  There was a voice in me that I had failed to listen to.  It didn’t come from my head; it came from a deeper place, a calmer place.
        When I was young and would look upon Mt. Shasta from the deck of my family home, I had the same sense of that voice.  The mountain was peaceful, solid, powerful but quiet.  Mt. Shasta always made me feel centered when I felt lost or dizzy with the pace of my life.  This was the same voice that I found in the depths of my soul.  It is hard to mold consonants and vowels to fit a proper description of this voice because it speaks an unheard language but I believe it is the voice of God - the voice of the Spirit.  It comes to us as nothing more than a tug on the heart or as the breath of a child on your neck and much different from the booming radio signal of the intellect.  In the days after Eric’s death I began to turn the radio static down and listen to this voice in my chest and suddenly I found everything I was pursuing was false and lacking meaning.  I wasn’t lost in the woods of my life; I was lost on the Los Angeles freeway of my life speeding through a maze of interchanges.
         I began to write again.  I began to notice my breath and the wind and my feet on the ground.  It had been many years of spoonful after spoonful of sand to cover my voice; it would take time to bring it out again.  I began playing guitar in my room with the door locked so no one could hear my fingers stumble across the frets or the scratch of my voice as it tried to find a melody.  I cleared my shelves of text books and began reading literature and poetry.  I could sense something being nursed back to health inside of me; it wasn’t God, he had always been there, but my capacity to listen to God, to hear God, to sing with God that was what was being refreshed.  My soul had been desperate for water and sustenance but for years had only found sand.
         The songs I wrote were not great, in fact in all honesty, they were filled with cliches and bits of broken thoughts, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was I was using my voice again, and it was mine.  My voice was my life, and I was listening to what God was whispering to me as he helped me along. I could feel myself being filled up instead of drained out as I went through my day.  Living a spirit filled life takes a lot of listening.  Finding your voice takes time and silence.  It means paying attention.  It means living your life in a way that speaks for you instead of finding the right words, the right philosophy, or religion.  St. Francis of Assisi said, “Preach the gospel to the whole world, and if necessary, use words.”  There is too much talk these days and not enough people letting their hearts and their lives sing for them.
         Wherever you are in your life right now, it is not too late to find your voice.  It is not too late to find an empty room to start to listen to the voice that has been within you from your very first breath.  Once you begin to find and listen to the voice the adventure can begin and your life will never be the same.  I am 36 years old as I am writing this and I have been playing music ever since that day in February.  I have been wildly unsuccessful as an artist and singer but what a ride it has been.  I have laughed more, loved bigger, and learned more on this journey than if I would have continued living the life of a surface dweller.  I have failed, taken giant steps backwards, and lost my way often but after finding my voice, after finding the spiritual path it was never long before I was charging back into the woods of a life filled with wonder.
    I remember one night during my first year of college Eric said he had never smoked a cigar, so he and I went down to the local mini-mart, bought some cheap cigars, and smoked and talked all night about the meaning of life, love, pain, calling, and the days before us.  At one point he put on his favorite record, jumped up on the bed and danced in his underwear with a cigar hanging form his mouth.  He then said to me, “In this life Trent, sometimes you can’t walk; sometimes you have to dance.”  In 3 years I would get the phone call that Eric David Funderburg was killed in a helicopter accident in El Salvador.  He died one month past his 22nd birthday.  The words he said to me that night have been carved into the walls of my heart, and I carry him and them with me everyday.  I never knew their significance until the day I got the phone call telling me he was gone.  They were the first words I thought of when my Dad told me he was gone because in that moment I realized I was walking through my life, but I desperately wanted to learn how to dance.
       Finding your voice is hard work.  There is a world out there pulling you to the safe structured streets away from the forest with cautionary tales and fear, but your voice is your ticket to the dance.  We live in a world full of people walking through their lives on very safe sidewalks of concrete and stone being told what to sing, how to sing, and when to sing.  I know the sound can be deafening, but the voice you are looking for is not on these sidewalks.  There is a river that runs through all of us, that connects you to me.  If you follow this river it will lead you to your voice, your calling, your path in this world.  It will lead you to greater hardship and greater joy than you can possibly imagine but you will also find the very heart of being alive.  Do not forget you were created to experience beauty, truth, wonder, and goodness.  You have one go around in this life: stop walking. Listen closely to the gentle song of your own voice and soon you will find yourself dancing with eyes and arms open. 

God\, book, christianity, faith, life, music, peace, religion, spirituality, trent yaconelli | 6 Comments »

People make such a big deal about “doing” in our culture.  Millions and millions of books, motivational speakers, classes, teachers, parents, ministers, …etc all giving us new ways to do more, to get more, to try…more.  In all of this Doing how often do we trust?  How much emphasis is placed on trust?  How often do we speak to our children, to our friends, and to our family about trust?  To “do” is to be active.  To be actively pursuing change and action, to be in motion.  To trust seems passive doesn’t it?  In our culture it almost seems lazy or a cop out and yet it is probably the most difficult thing to do in ones life.  It is the letting go that is most often the hardest thing for one to do and yet we are constantly telling people to stick it out, suck it up, put your head down and push through, hang in there, never give up!, never surrender, and on and on but were does trust in God come in?  We are the people who are still.  I know it seems passive but it is truly not.  Ever try to be still for 10 minutes, for 20, or for 45?  It is one of the most difficult things one can do.  Your mind is screaming, your body is racing, your ears are listening to every possible noise as you try to simply be still.  The concept of placing yourself in God’s hands is often said but how often to we actually do this and do we really believe it?  Has it become just a nicety that we say, “welp I’m just going to put it into God’s hands” after we have basically given up? 

Trust is not a passive action, it is the opposite.  It is not an act of surrender it is a profound act of faith.  Instead of waiting for that moment when we are exhausted and trying and trying and doing and doing everything possible to change course or stick it out or push through what if we started with trusting God.  What if we started by actively trusting God in our life and then actively listening and noticing his presence.  I am often (not as much as I should) looking for God in moments in my life as I struggle and strain looking for an answer I can pursue and fix and change but when I find God in those moments he is most of the time telling me to trust….to be still….to listen…..to learn….to have faith in something bigger than my own actions.  What I have found is that it is easier to run out and have meetings, emails, discussions, schedules, lists…etc because I can get caught up in the feeling that I am DOING something when in actuality I am often just prolonging or confusing or avoiding.  When I trust in God and his action in my life it is letting go but it is like the Letting Go of a jagged cliff and having faith that you will arrive safely at the bottom….it takes a tremendous amount of courage and faith.   Hanging on is actually easier because you are just listening to your own instincts, your own reasonable mind telling you there is no other way.  Your mind tells you “yes, this situation is not ideal but HANG ON, struggle, push through because at least we know what this Jagged edge is.  Look down there, who knows what is down there!  Probably death, pain, and destruction!  Don’t let go!!!!  Trust in your own two hands not in some invisible force!!!!”

Right now in my life I realize I have one hand still hanging on to the jagged edge.  Part of me wants to just let go and trust in the arms of love to catch me and lead me down my path.  The other part of me tells me to keep hanging on….that I can do it….to trust in only myself…to take hold of my destiny but when I get a glimpse of what is above this jagged edge I cling to, I see only another jagged edge…..and another…..and another. 

So now is the long             

                                 deep   breath                   

                                                                before

                                                                               the letting go.

God\, christianity, faith, life, peace, religion, spirituality, trust | 2 Comments »