In

One perk of being away from home is that I have become really aware of how I deal with things. Example: in the past I was very good at not being honest with myself. Justification and dodging the truth were my games and I played them darn well. But away from home I have to be honest with myself, I have tell it how it is. It’s been hard, but also very liberating. I’m growing up as I do this, I’m becoming more me….through honesty identity is being forged. Anyway, within this state of self-awareness I’ve noticed something and it relates to my interests and why I find them, well…interesting.

If you know me, you know that I like to be “in” on it. I like watching the acclaimed show (Arrested Development), reading that bestselling book (Eat, Pray, Love), and listening to that latest craze song (Boom, Boom, Pow). But I’ve noticed sometimes that the show/book/song isn’t really interesting to me, it’s just interesting to everyone else. Therefore I feel like I need to watch/read/listen to it just so I can be on the IN-side. When I started to realize that I spent time on things I didn’t necessarily enjoy, I was kind of surprised. Internally, I have always prided myself on being who I am but I was following the crowd in this regard. I suppose everyone has this “in syndrome”: Starbucks is an example, as is any and all Apple products. People like buying things that represent their status as a hipster, but I think there is a fine line between following a fad and losing who you are.

Growing up I literally prayed this prayer, “God, let me be unique.” It was an unnecessary prayer looking back; I was unique… and thankfully I still am. But my obsession with certain fads isn’t unique at all in fact it’s the exact opposite. To clarify: fads aren’t bad, that is not what I’m saying at all. It’s great to read a book that others have read because it’s usually an awesome conversation starter. But I think that reading a book just to start a conversation about it, is stupid. I did that sometimes, I’d actually read a whole freaking book just so, if the opportunity presented itself, I could tell people I read it and how thoroughly I “enjoyed” it. I fondly remember a couple books that I didn’t enjoy reading (the Amber Spyglass fits nicely into that category), but I finished them just so, A) I could say I did and B) to feel cultured.

To be fair, part of this has to do with my mildly OCD peeve about finishing something I start. If I read one of the Lord of the Rings books, I need to read them all. If I buy one fantastic song off an album, I need to buy the rest of that fantastical album. It’s an offense to God to buy one Tegan and Sara song and not buy all of them eventually. Finishing what I start is basically an art to me…

Lately I’ve been learning to not only like things I like, but to stand my conviction that I liked them in the first place. For instance, I loved the movie Rachel Getting Married, but everyone else here hates it lividly. It was a learning experience for me because I really love that movie and in some way, I had to stand by my principles: I liked it and if you didn’t that’s fine.

My obsession with being “in” on things even went as far as compromising some of my morals. I found myself justifying things and it was then that I realized something was happening, something I had the power to stop…. and so I stopped it. I deleted TV shows, threw out some books, and you know what? I feel ok. I think I actually gained something. I was afraid I would feel bad after I threw the stuff out, as if I was throwing a piece of myself out.. I was actually identifying so much with materials that I was sinning to find an identity. That wasn’t a good place to be in, but I’m moving on up, kind of like the Jefferson’s. Anyway, here is a short rundown of what you can learn from my mistakes.

1. In the pursuit of being cultured, don’t forsake your interests and/or morals.

2. Like what you like, dislike what you dislike. If you can’t do this, you may need help on forming an opinion and sticking to it.

3. Identity should never be rooted in the temporal, but always in the eternal.

4. And finally, if someone doesn’t like your new favorite movie, it’s ok! It’s not personal, it’s just cinema….

Home, I Miss Thee

I have countless reasons why I miss being at home, but here are three big ones.

1. TV: We have TV here, but people are always playing ‘Halo’ or praying in the living room, that I’ve actually never watched it. Thus, I feel totally out-of-the-loop media-wise. I haven’t seen ‘the Office’ or ‘Fringe’ in four weeks, ‘the Today Show’ is a thing of the distant past (is Kathy Lee still there), and HGTV, well let’s just say that I haven’t heard or seen from Susanne Wong in many, many months.

2. Privacy: I like having privacy. To me it’s a civil right but it seems everyone in my house hasn’t heard of this particular right. I mean, I have privacy in my room but I really can’t spend all my time sitting in bed…can you say, antisocial? But I would be nice to be able to have my breakfast alone, in peace and quiet. It’s very hard eating a waffle with people talking all around you. I need silence to concentrate, even when it comes to eating.

3. Chili’s: Yes, I really miss this place. For those of you who don’t know, there is a small group of us who’d go to Chili’s every single week after Saturday night service. We’d order tea (a few would order water with lemon, because they believed that water + lemon + sugar = lemonade) and then we’d order chips and salsa. Those times were always filled with laughter and it only cost like $5. Five bucks for a laugh is fine by me.

So there are three things I miss about home, if you need more I have them haha.

California: The Journey Thus Far

When I first arrived here, it was understandably difficult. I'd lived in Iowa all my life and since I was homeschooled, I spent a majority of my time at home with the family. So it was really, really hard to suddenly be thrust into a situation where I lived with fifteen guys who didn’t know a thing about cleaning, respecting privacy, and the relaxation watching HGTV provided. It was a whole new world (don't you dare close your eyes) and I was shell-shocked when I arrived.

This is not to say that the people weren't welcoming, because they were. I was very surprised by how nurturing some of the guys were. I needed truly nice people to surround me those first few weeks, people who understood the principal of privacy and homesickness...because we all know that when you’re homesick that you yearn for privacy. I was so homesick that first week! Showers consisted of me lathering myself in soap and daydreaming about Ankeny and its landscaped lawns. Dinner time mainly concerned me eating three or four apple slices, while wondering what all my friends back home were doing at that precise moment in time. I was so homesick the very first day, that when we went to the ocean I could not even comprehend what I was looking at. It could've been the Eiffel Tower or the Virgin Mary herself and I would've responded the same: big whoop, I want to go home.

But after those first few weeks, I began to feel somewhat at home in California. It's still a work in progress and I think it probably will be until the day I leave haha, but I’m getting used to being here. While it’s hard, I do I feel like I'm meant to be here. For those of you who watch 'Lost', Heartland is my island and someday I'll have to go back there, but for now, I'm content here...well not content in the sense that I'm happy or anything. More so, I know I'm supposed to be here, that I'm growing, and that if I were home I wouldn’t be growing like I am. So for now I'm in a happy medium: I don't like it here, I don't want to be here, but I'm willing to stay. Honestly, the holidays can't come quick enough.

It Began in the Land of Corn: The Evan Olson Story

I was born in Iowa, otherwise known as the eternal land of corn. I grew up on the grounds of drug rehab center where my dad had worked for the past ten years. Teen Challenge of the Midlands was located in central Iowa and that was my home for the first thirteen years of my life. I lived on eighty-eight acres of woods, creeks, and recovering alcoholics, and I loved it there. You’d think growing up surrounded by drug addicts would have a negative effect on ones life, but honestly it has never struck me as anything different, it was just home. Teen Challenge was in many ways an ideal place to grow up, it was all private property so I was really free to run about. I love stories and my story making started there, there in the woods of yesteryear. I fondly remember my childhood there, it was a unique place to grow up and I’m glad I had the chance to live there.

When I was thirteen we moved from Colfax (where that particular Teen Challenge was located) and moved to a suburb of Des Moines called Ankeny. It was in Ankeny that I began to hear whispers about something called the Kingdom. At first we didn’t have a name for it, but it was something tangible and we pursued it. My dad (the pastor) pinpointed a meeting with Matt Sorger as a turning point in our church. It was a Saturday night, Matt was praying for people, and suddenly in the rafters of the church we could see a mist. It goes without saying that this was a big deal and is generally thought of as a turning point in our church’s recent history. That is where things began to quicken, when healings became more routine, and the supernatural in general began increasing. Now, six years later things God is moving in power, the Kingdom is expanding in our city, and my church is becoming a family. I love seeing how our church has changed in the last five years, from a church body to a church family…it is awesome!

While many people may leave BSSD and feel that they are leaving family, I don’t have that problem. Not to say I don’t consider the people in California family, because I do. But when do I go back to Ankeny, I have a whole other family waiting there for me when I return. What I love most about the Kingdom is this whole community principle. It has shown me how life is supposed to be lived, surrounded by friends who support you on your journey and encouraging you every step of the way.

When I traveled to BSSD, I comforted myself with two thoughts, 1) that God wants me in California and 2) that anything associated with Bethel is probably going to be freakin amazing. I was disappointed when I didn’t get into BSSM, but that pretty much evaporated after a few days. I began to see that it BSSD was really tailored to suit me, the main reason being that it was smaller. God knew I was better in a smaller venue and so I became more excited as September approached. I like it here now, it isn’t home but it is slowly becoming a home away from home and I am thankful for that.

My biggest struggle thus far in California has been transitioning into this new community. I have a community back in Iowa and after a few days here I began to ask myself, “Why do I need another community, I don’t even want one…. I ALREADY have one!” So that has been difficult, getting used to the idea that I need to have a community here in California to walk with me these next nine months. This has been hard, not to mention the fact that I am hundreds and hundreds of miles from home. I’m so used to saying, “Yeah, I’m heading out to California.” So it has been hard getting used to saying, “Yeah, I’m from Iowa.” My family and church are so intertwined that I miss them both equally, thank God for Facebook…honestly, thank God ha ha.

I feel like the year that I was born to now has been phase one in my life and that I am now about to enter into phase two. What I want most as I move into “phase two” is to have my identity established in Christ and to have an honest-to-God encounter with the Father and His heart. I’ve been saved most of my life, so I have the blessing/curse of not knowing a life without Christ. Because I haven’t had a deep conversion experience, I am very much a circumstantial Christian and I want that to change this year. I don’t want my emotions to dictate who I am or who He is. I want to be rooted and established in love and from that place I will change the world.

(This paper was written while listening to Fix You Up by Tegan and Sara)

(It was edited while listening to You Know I’m No Good by Amy Winehouse)

The Angel of Road Kill

Now more then ever I’m baffled. Last night I had dinner with four amazing, fantastic, and brilliant people. We ate, we shared, we grew as friends, and we of course laughed. Mostly we laughed about my irrational fear, a fear we now refer to as ‘the Angel of Road Kill’.

This is where I’ll begin, with what this fear was. About a year ago I had this stupidly awful irrational fear. It went something like this. Every time we passed road kill on the highway/interstate/rural road I’d think, “Ok, I hope the angel in charge of road kill gets that carcass where it is supposed to go.” My next thought followed instantaneously, “Otherwise, if he messes up I’ll wake up tonight with that dead raccoon in my mouth.” Yes, that was a literal fear of mine. I wasn’t paralyzed by it, but I did sometimes worry about that. No longer though! I have risen above worldly fears and am now worried about more concrete things like terrorism and wrinkles. But before I embarrass myself further I’ll move onto my point.

Soon I’ll be heading off to California and leaving these people and that really scares me. Will I find any other people like this in California? Will I find acceptance and belonging? My question is this: Is my fear of leaving Iowa and these new amazing people, a kind of ‘Angel of Road Kill’ scenario? Is it a valid fear and should I worry that within nine months these people could be gone? It’s entirely within the realm of possibility that these fantastic people will no longer be in Iowa when I return.

So I am in a place of confusion. There are other reasons I feel I should maybe just stay, such as Heartland. Heartland is amazing; it is not my home away from home, its home. Things are happening here that belong in epics, but instead are being lived out. Obviously, Bethel is also experiencing more or less the same things. But why leave and spend countless dollars when maybe what is happening there will happen here in Iowa soon? So I’m wondering all of this and hoping I’ll know what I’m supposed to do by the time I go to bed tonight. Hopefully, I’ll also go to bed without a raccoon in my mouth :) So much more conquering my fear....

Welcome to the World According to Ev

So I was thinking about something today. I was thinking about the fact that I think a lot. I think most of the day (two points for me) and usually what I’m thinking about, my viewpoints and everyday commentaries are fairly funny to people (when and if I vocalize these views). So I decided to make a blog to voice these opinions and so here I am. Here I am and wouldn’t you know I have no idea what to write next?

I guess I could ask you if you’ve seen ‘Lost’, but if you know me well then I’ve already asked you that twelve times. I could ask your favorite song (mine is ‘Hide and Seek’ by Imogen Heap), but usually most people can’t identify their very favorite song. I could ask about your political affiliation, your love life, or your religious background. But honestly, none of that interests me on here because the answers would be fairly predictable. The answers would go something like this.

Q/ Political Affiliation? A/ I’m an independent.
Q/Love life? A/ What love life are you referring to?
Q/ Religious Background? A/ Well I went to church but I kind of fell out of sync with it all. Now I’m more concerned with God than a man-made religion.

So I won’t ask any of that that stuff, instead I’ll state a simple fact and it is this: my name is Evan Olson and this is my blog. You can now consider yourself inside of my little head.