Tour

Tour has been fun... had a solid last couple of nights, and tonight we're in Coeur D’ Alene, Idaho at a place called Embyrs Venue, which is cool looking, with couches and checkered floors and more couches. The only drag about couches is that usually people sit in them, instead of dance, but whatever, you know? Whatever! 

The Lord has been doing some cool stuff in people's hearts over the last couple of days, including mine. A lot of people have been super encouraging and been super encouraged by some of my stuff, and it's a huge blessing, and a reminder that the Lord can work in a little 19 year old to legitimately touch hearts. 

So that's super cool. And I'm constantly reminded that that's what this is about - it's about the Lord speaking through my art and the bands' art and offering this love that I believe saves and that I can literally say saved me. 

So I've been journaling a lot, and trying to write out these prayers to keep my head in the right place and keep my heart focused on what's important in the midst of the stress that I'm feeling from other things in life, and know that God's will, will be done, and that that's a beautiful thing. 

So that's my prayer tonight, that someone would be blessed through this, and that love might shine through words that I never even dreamed would've been shared with anyone but me.

Oregon

Stayed in Eugene last night with my bestest friend Gage's mom. She's as crazy as he is. Or maybe, he's as crazy as she is. I definitely see where he gets his hyper-ness. 

Anyway, we went to a beach somewhere west of that and it was beautiful. 

I'm reading the Watchmen comic and it's awesome. I think it might be better than the movie (I loved the movie. I know most people didn't, but I did.). 

We've had the last two days off. One of the shows dropped. Tomorrow we have something in Spokane, WA. That'll be fun. ITMOL and I need to work something out for the intro to their set. I keep on playing in between bands during set changes, but that's really loud and stuff. I think that maybe if I can play one poem after they sound check, into the intro, and one immediately following their set, then that would work well, but I don't know how well... whatever. 

Syrens just cancelled the August run that I was doing with them, which is a frickin drag, but it's alright. I wish that I had booked the run so that I could just get in touch with the promoters and rearrange the package with another headliner, but I can't, so... drag. 

The Lord will provide. I'm going to start writing more people about going out on tour with them and whatnot, and stay with In The Midst of Lions in the meantime. Maybe it will end up being a cool thing, if we can get the time frames worked out well. We'll see. I just love chillin with the guys regardless.

I've gotta get a VE-HICLE, and soon, so that I can get around. 

The whole point of this entire blog was simply to say that Oregon is beautiful. Nothing else. 

New Recordings

So I just posted a bunch of new recordings, and stuff. Check them out @ www.myspace.com/levithepoet.

Also, Hopecore Magazine did a story on the Levi the Poet project - you can check that out at www.hopecore.com. There's a hyperlink on there to the July issue.

First show of tour is tonight. Hope it goes well!

Don't have much time on here, more later.

Much love,
Levi

Persons and Censorship

Something that I never really thought about in Proverbs is that the majority of the entire thing is addressed to "sons". I think that when I read the Bible, I get it stuck in my head that somehow the writers wrote it as if they were addressing or going to be addressing a million people... like a bulletin on myspace, or a blog, or a twit. 

Like, yeah! I'm going to write this and it's going to be written and addressed to a large audience and so I've gotta write for the audience that's going to read it. I guess the best way to describe my thought process is selling advertisements. When you're working on ad sales and you write a "personal" email to the artist that says "Hey guys! How are you?" and you make it sound as personal as possible while still reaching a number of people. 

And I don't know why I seem to have it stuck in my head that the Bible is written like that, because it's not. And I didn't even realize that that's how I have it in my head until this morning. Because all these pastors and people always talk about deeply personal the book is, the books are, and I believe that, practically. I mean, hell, I talk about how deeply personal it is all the time. 

I guess what I really mean is that the dudes who wrote it, wrote it because they had a deep passion and burden for what they were saying, and, maybe more importantly, because they loved the persons (and I use "persons" as opposed to "people" for a reason) that they wrote to in a profound way. 

And I realized this because of the first couple of words in the first couple of verses in the book of Proverbs, where David writes the letters that form the word "my son" - and then he goes on to say words like "listen" and like "do" and like "do not" and it's not because David is a jerkoff with a power trip that "wants to tell a whole bunch of people that will probably read his wonderful Godly book someday" - but it's because he loves Solomon, his son, and his other sons, and he wants what's best for him. 

The coolest thing about this realization, for me, is that it brings a sense of personal relationship that has nothing to do with me, but has everything to do with a dad loving his kid, and telling him how to live practically. And it starts to feel like a conversation that my dad would have with me while we stand in the garage and talk about why I started smoking cigarettes. And he tells me that it's good to do certain things and not good to do certain things and he tells me that stuff because he loves me, not because he has an audience. He tells me the things he tells me because he has a deep desire to see me grow up in wisdom and godliness, and because there is a burden on his heart, as a father, as someone that loves someone, and not because I just happen to be standing there and so I might hear him and I might not. 

Maybe that doesn't make sense. Or maybe it makes sense because it's common sense and something that has already clicked with most everybody. I guess I just think it's cool because I've always said that it clicks with me, too, but I don't know if it really ever has. 

It wasn't written for the audience, like this blog is written for an audience, no matter how much I'd like to believe it's just written for me. Instead, it's written firstly out of a very personal love, and the audience came secondarily. 

And I guess that's something that's cool to me, too. That no one pulled any punches when they wrote that stuff. And why would they? If it's as deeply personal as we all say it is, then it would have to be real, right? I pull punches on this blog because if I were to say every single thing that I'm always thinking and feeling I would be scrutinized and questioned and that's something I'm not entirely comfortable with. But I feel like that's what people do. They pull punches in front of an audience because there might be people in the audience that won't like what they have to say, but if it's one on one between a father and a son, why would Pops censor himself or neglect to share everything that's on his heart? 

Maybe that's why I have so much respect for artists like Eminem. I may not believe in or agree with what the dude believes in or agrees with, but the fact is that the dude believes in and agrees with a lot of stuff and he says it, right? What's the infamous motto? "I just don't give a fuck!"  It may not be right or justified, but I think that I believe him when he says it. And a lot of people may or may not like Eminem because his music may or may not be good and he may or may not have a whiney voice and he may or may not complain constantly and blah blah blah, but the guy is honest, and he believes in what he does, and he says what he says, and he loves his daughter, and he's gone through trial and error of reconciling with his wife, ex wife, wife, ex wife, and he raps about personal life things that transcend the whole "sex, drugs, violence" rap thing. And there are plenty of other artists that do the same.

I think that it clicked that the Bible is that kind of personal. The kind of thing that says what it says regardless of what people think about it. And while Eminem's lyrics may not be the best example I could have given... I think the point I'm trying to make is that censorship bugs me, and when I think of censorship, one of the things I think of is writing or saying things to massive amounts of people and holding back on what's really on your heart, or what you really want to say most, because somebody might not like it. 

And the Bible doesn't do that. It has all the elements of what rappers rap about. It has violence and sex and drugs and passion and love and relationships and fear and trust and instruction and poems and cussing and pleasure and futility and anger and death and life. It has life in that book. And yeah it has the "Eternal Life" but I'm talking about the "living-kind-of-what-we're-doing-now-life". 

And it's not written to me like a blogger would write to me, 

it's written to me like my dad would talk to me. 

Sanctuary/Motorcycles

Jesus stands with his mouth to the Father's ear, whispering on my behalf. 

How amazing is it that Jesus is for me? For us?

I think that the most exciting thing, for me, as of now, at least, about building up some sort of consistency in plugging into the word of God, and taking advantage of the relationship that Jesus offers me, is that I no longer feel obliged to care for and love others, but I desire it. I get stoked about being able to start the day and just be with people and love them and cherish those blessings. I am becoming ever more thankful for the people I have around me, for those that I'm close to and for those that I've yet to meet. And I know that my relationship with God and others is not about feeling and butterflies, but it's just so exciting when it does feel that way. And it does. And it's noticeable to me. And it's AWESOME. 

More of the dates have been coming through on the July tour that I'm doing with In the Midst of Lions (www.myspace.com/inthemidstoflions) and All Or Nothing (www.myspace.com/aonmetal). There's a chance that I'll be doing some dates with a band called Syrens (www.myspace.com/syrenstx) in August, as well. I'm still just trying to figure it all out. Prayer request, though - there's a chance that I'm going to need to get to Denver in order to meet the band because they won't be able to come this far south to pick me up anymore. That wouldn't be a problem except that Veil Arms has a huge show the night before, and that's really my last chance to make any money before the run, and that makes getting to Denver really complicated. So, if you would, please pray with me that the planning with run - at least - relatively smoothly. 

I'm also in the process of selling my car. (Honda Accord - if anyone wants something cheap to drive with mewithoutYou lyrics all over it. I'm trying to get $400 out of it, but will probably settle for less.) A friend of mine has an old 80s Suzuki GS 750 cc for sale that he said is in good condition that he's selling for around the same price as I'm trying to get for my car, and said he'd help me get it top-notch so I don't die. So that's kind of what I'm thinking at the moment. Who knows. I'm the most indecisive person in the world. I can't even decide what kind of candy I want at the gas station. 

Can't really think of anything else to write. Thanks for loving me. If any of you have any prayer requests for me, I would love to keep them in mind. Just a thought. Message me if you don't want them all over the internet for everyone to see. I would be honored to pray for you. God knows I need it, too. 

Love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love, 

Levi

The Lakers

So did anyone did the game tonight? 

Because I saw the game tonight. And I had a death threat from my best friend if the Lakers won. 

And guess what?

The Lakers won. 

Goodbye. 

Proverbs 1

What do you have to do in order to grow weeds?

Nothing! Now, you want to tend a garden that has fruitful harvest? 

You're going to have to pull weeds every single day. You take a week or two off, you're right back to where you started.

It's the same thing with the human heart. You have to pull weeds, you have to prune your harvest, every single day. 

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, 

but fools despise wisdom and discipline." 

You either fear God, and that's the beginning of wisdom, 

or you don't, and that's the beginning of folly. 

"He who hates discipline hates knowledge."

How can you hate God's knowledge, practically? What do you have to do to hate God's knowledge?

Just don't read the scriptures! "Well I'm not very good, I don't really read the scriptures ever."

Well that's because you hate knowledge. 

The reason that most people don't read scripture isn't because they don't understand it, but because they DO understand it and they don't like what it says. 

Mark Twain: "It's not the parts of the Bible that I don't understand that trouble me. It's the parts of the Bible that I don't understand that really trouble me."

Do you love what God loves, and do you hate what God hates?

What does God love? God, the Father, loves the Son. So we should love the Son. 

God loves wisdom and knowledge, and we should love wisdom and knowledge. 

And wisdom and knowledge are hidden where? In Christ!

So we should pursue Christ, and we should fear him, and what happens, when that happens, is that we will naturally start to love what God loves, and hate what God hates. 

Thought maybe I'd start sharing a little bit of what I'm learning through this series that I'm listening to. Driscol on Proverbs. There's more, but I can't type fast enough. I really like the bit about pulling weeds. That's a very practical picture. Apparently I'm a picture person.