Amateur Lovers...

Everyone I know needs love like drugs
Like a common cold we could never shrug
My baby and me we’re missing the same stuff
We’ve all got a disease, deficiency of love

Every day we still try every night we still cry
Driving home on the 805

We don’t know what we’re doing we do it again
We’re just amateur lovers with amateur friends
I can tell you what you’re thinking now
Before you think it you can settle down
We don’t know what we’re doing
Let’s do it again!

Try to play it down but it never stuck
I tried to bail this town I’m getting no such luck
When nobody’s around I keep my eyes on the clock
There ain’t a cure I’ve found In all my times around this block

Everyday we still try, every night we still cry
We drive it home on the 405

I can tell you what you’re thinking now
Before you think it you can settle down
Our lovin’ isn’t gonna burn us out

Professional!?!

With it being Valentine's Day and all I decided that this would be just as good a day as any to post a blog. And one about love would be even more appropriate. So here's my post about amateur lovers.
I thought I'd start with the etymologies of amateur and professional. I got these from the Online Etymology Dictionary:
Amateur is from 1784, "one who has a taste for (something)," from Fr. amateur "lover of," from O.Fr., from L. amatorem (nom. amator) "lover," from amatus, pp. of amare "to love." Meaning "dabbler" (as opposed to professional) is from 1786.
Professional (adj.) is first recorded 1747 with sense of "pertaining to a profession;" 1884 as opposite of amateur.
So then, in simpler terms, professional is like your job, but amateur is just for the love of it. That's why this is one of my favorite songs on the new Switchfoot album "Oh! Gravity." (Along with Faust, Midas and Myself and American Dream, which I'll probably write about later.) I love it because that's what we are. Amateur lovers and amateur friends, none of us really are professionals. Loving people is not our job, although as Christians we are supposed to love everyone. We're not forced to do it. We should be friends, love people, because we want to. We should do it because that's what we love to do. A lot of the time we act like professional friends or lovers when we should be amateur friends or lovers. I know most of the time I feel like I have to love everyone, or it's my job to love everyone, but I need to think about differently. I need to think of it as that's what I should love to do. So that's my goal for a while, love loving people. Sounds simple, but it should be quite a challenge. I'm willing to at least try it. Are you?

Jenna

P.S. Happy Valentine's Day!