Further Up and Further In...

Missing it...missing you.

2011-01-27T23:55:00.000-08:00

It baffles me that I can write such profound words and miss their meaning entirely.

I guess that is all.

A conversation with "you".

2011-01-06T18:54:00.000-08:00

I could just say all the things in my head, but I wouldn't dare cut out in front of the pack like that. I need you. I need that voice in my head that tells me what you would say. Even now that voice pounds. "Watch out, they're gonna think you're listening to evil spirits, if you say that." Well, am I?

Who are the people around me? Is my perception of them anything like they really are? Am I hearing any of the things they say in the way that they mean them? This wouldn't be such an issue if I wasn't desperately concerned with what they all think about me. And of course...I hear that voice again, seemingly warning me: "They are going to judge you for how shallow you are to care what people think about you." But I don't care, I guess. Well...it is ironic, and confusing. I tell "you" (The person I hope will read this and justify that feeling I get when I fantasize about the people who really relate to my words because I can't find anyone in real life to do that for me) that I care about what people think about me to the point of paralysis, but then am I really that concerned, because I just shot myself in the foot, metaphorically speaking. I just revealed my weakness. Or maybe I'm just self-destructive, and I seem to like living the corner I've painted myself into.

Either way, I'm rambling. I hope I can capture some significance in all this. God, I'm dying to say something true. This makes no sense at all, but it's all the sense I can grasp at right now. You. Who are you? I can touch you, with my words, with my eyes, with my hands, but not my heart. What makes you any different than a picture on a screen? A video? A mannequin? A synthesis of movements and sounds convincing enough to fool me into believing you are like me? Even if you are like me, all the sensory information isn't enough to add up to a person. A being. It just doesn't. It's not enough to convince me you understand. It only makes me feel the emptiness growing in me. Who are you? Really, who am I?

We're touching each other, alright. Fucking each other, killing each other. Groping outwardly to feel a life. To see if maybe you feel different than I feel. I hope that you do, but then I misunderstand, cruise right by that common factor. But if you don't feel different, then we're both empty. What do we have then? The math here doesn't add up to a hopeful outlook. So. Where do I go from here?

To grasp for something more than the pieces add up to I've got to make believe. I hate how faith really boils down to this. I hate how life boils down to this futility. This dependence. No way can I stop trying to live, trying to find something I can compare myself to. Something to define myself by, and add up to something good.

And then there is you. I am obsessed with you. I can't stop thinking about you. But I have started feeling like you are a more of a curse than a blessing. Maybe like a heroin addict who has passed the point when his drug was a control, and now it's controlling him. Yes. I do feel controlled by you. The trouble is that nobody cares about me. Maybe they do, but I have no way to understand it. I can't comprehend it. Sounds like another language or something. They say they do, but what good does that do me? It's like a bird who builds his nest with a winning lottery ticket. I am still thinking about you though. Maybe not the real you, but the you who is really just a projection of me. How can I conceive of a you that is fundamentally different than me? But if such a "you" doesn't exist then what hope have I? A "you" that is completely different than me at the core I have no means to relate to them, so even if they exist, even if every person I meet is that "you", I would miss it. I would miss it altogether for lack a way to understand them.

Then there is the opposite problem: if "you" are something I can understand, then I seem to taint it by the association with myself. How could a good being have anything to do with me, without being utterly ruined by having something in common with me. So...there is the problem with "you".

I need. I am drawing in. And You. How can I know that you are not me? How can I know that you are solid? How can I know that you are able to hold me up? How can I know that I can trust you. How can I know that I can rest on you. What...oh God. I'm tired.

Okay. If it is true that you abide in me, when I abide in you, then there will be no defining line of where I begin and you end. Even so, from the outside I long to know that you don't depend on me, because I don't trust me. Is that what this is really about? If you exist in me, how can I ever trust you? You know who you are, don't you. It aches to want you so bad, but to be unable to move toward you. I am paralyzed by fear. My own legs betray me. This fundamental division rips me from tip to toe. Mutiny on the Bounty.

I hope that I can I execute the rebel now. I'm just gonna lay down this hurt. My biggest fear is that in laying it down it will be taken from me. Somewhere in all this pain is a heart that is the fountainhead of my passion. I can't bear to lose it. I fear some real person will read all my pain and try to help me. And then I will be faced yet again with my inability to receive love. I will be face to face with my captor. Sigh.

I want life to be a song about me. I want someone to be devoted to me. I want to know that I will get to be part of something that tells me who I am. I want to be able to articulate my desire. I want to cry and never stop. I want to sing a song that is a weeping motion. I want to become the beauty that rules over me with cruel distance. I don't know anything about love. I want to stop cursing myself, but I want to speak words that feel deeply true, not just platitudes. I don't want to fake it till I make it any more. I want to be real. I want to know what real is. I haven't said his name this whole time, but he's been on my mind the whole time. I can scarcely acknowledge him, because he scares me so. He is so strong. He's calling me and I want to stay mad forever. I want to run him down with my steely cynicism, but I know he's going to win. I want to flee forever into introspective abuse, but I know he will catch me again. But I wait. I will not give in, I need him to show his strength. I need to see it. I don't care what the "you's" say. I will wait for rescue, and I may die here. But, I need a savior, not a belief.

Who am I kidding, I don't know what I need. I'm just bored now. Waiting. Unsure. I hope. I don't have some poetic clincher for this one. I'm still hanging here, hanging on, wishing I could let go or something. Whatever.

Salvation

2010-12-28T13:18:00.001-08:00

be·lieve
/bɪˈliv/ [bih-leev]
–verb (used without object)
1.
to have confidence in the truth, the existence, or the reliability of something, although without absolute proof that one is right in doing so: Only if one believes in something can one act purposefully.

–verb (used with object)
2.
to have confidence or faith in the truth of (a positive assertion, story, etc.); give credence to.
3.
to have confidence in the assertions of (a person).
4.
to have a conviction that (a person or thing) is, has been, or will be engaged in a given action or involved in a given situation: The fugitive is believed to be headed for the Mexican border.
5.
to suppose or assume; understand (usually fol. by a noun clause): I believe that he has left town.

Faith
-noun
1.
confidence or trust in a person or thing: faith in another's ability.
2.
belief that is not based on proof: He had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact.
6.
the obligation of loyalty or fidelity to a person, promise, engagement, etc.: Failure to appear would be breaking faith.
7.
the observance of this obligation; fidelity to one's promise, oath, allegiance, etc.: He was the only one who proved his faith during our recent troubles.
8.
Christian Theology . the trust in God and in His promises as made through Christ and the Scriptures by which humans are justified or saved.

jus·ti·fy

–verb (used with object)
1.
to show (an act, claim, statement, etc.) to be just or right:
2.
to defend or uphold as warranted or well-grounded
3.
Theology . to declare innocent or guiltless; absolve; acquit.
4.
Law .
a.
to show a satisfactory reason or excuse for something done.
b.
to qualify as bail or surety.

5Moses describes in this way the righteousness that is by the law: “The man who does these things will live by them.”a 6But the righteousness that is by faith says: “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’b” (that is, to bring Christ down) 7“or ‘Who will descend into the deep?’c” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). 8But what does it say? “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,”d that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: 9That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. 11As the Scripture says, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” 12For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, 13for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Romans 10:5-12

One more word for you:

shame
–noun
1.
the painful feeling arising from the consciousness of something dishonorable, improper, ridiculous, etc., done by oneself or another: She was overcome with shame.
2.
susceptibility to this feeling: to be without shame.
3.
disgrace; ignominy: His actions brought shame upon his parents.
4.
a fact or circumstance bringing disgrace or regret: The bankruptcy of the business was a shame. It was a shame you couldn't come with us.
–verb (used with object)
5.
to cause to feel shame; make ashamed: His cowardice shamed him.
6.
to drive, force, etc., through shame: He shamed her into going.
7.
to cover with ignominy or reproach; disgrace.

Cheers!

time Is closing

2010-12-20T14:02:00.000-08:00

it's a another day, the same day
the one that started a long time ago.
I Am part of it.

He was there when it started,
God spoke, and He Was the One who came.
He Was thirsty and then it Was finished.

the sinews and muscles Are faded,
tight then slack, gains and lack.
these days Are numbered, for soon
there Will only Be One.

the Sun Is rising, the day Is new
time Is closing to eternal bliss.
spring time Is making her song
and We Will sing it.

Medium Burnout

2010-11-02T14:18:00.000-07:00

Well, that pretty much says it all. I'm tired. But not that tired. God told me to rest and let Him love me. I didn't realize how freaking hard that is to do. I want to go; I want to achieve; I want to conquer. Even when it is so clear that my effort is counterproductive. I'm just afraid some one is going to say that I'm not working hard enough and "of course your goals aren't coming to fruition, you're too lazy".

Whatevs.

All I can do is all I can do. I've begun to realize that there is a point when activity can be a form of procrastination. It's nice to realize that rest can the most productive thing to do sometimes. It's time to give credit where it is due. It's time to take stock of the ways God picks up the slack. I am just a man, but rest let's me see that I'm a man whom God is helping tremendously.

He is so full of good sense. I want to be able to make the music that is burning inside my dreams, and the fleshly path is hard-nose, take-no-prisoners practice even when it hurts and when you feel like you're banging your head against a brick wall. The Godly way is letting Him call the shots and letting enough be enough, and it is punctuated with the knowledge that it is Him that will bring it to pass.

It's getting my priorities straight and realizing that I am more than just a musician. I'm more than just a husband. I'm more than just an employee. I'm more than just a man. I'm a child of God. I'm the Bride of Christ. I love irony. I love that things seem so backwards in the Kingdom. I want to see these roles filled to satisfaction, but they have to yield to the highest role.

Music is a tough one, because it means so much to me and holds so much promise. To set it aside long enough to receive love in a different medium, to be filled without the music, is so scary. Music is an idol when I can't put it down, especially when it costs me intimacy with God. Whoa...epiphany. So is marriage. Dang.

I need to go think about this.

Blog on a Bus

2010-10-12T22:23:00.000-07:00

I thought of a bad joke in honor of writing from a bus equipped with wi-fi, but I think I'll honor good taste instead.

I'm reading. Always reading. I'm reading a book called the Final Quest. I searched the author and saw that under his own website the next couple listings were articles on how he is a heretic. I read a couple then weighed in with my conscious, decided I didn't think he was a heretic. He wrote his book claiming it was shown to him in a prophetic vision.

I am really enjoying the read, though as it has developed it has becoming increasingly convicting. I have felt so near to God, also filled with reverence and fear of Him as well. I have taken my walk so lightly. The eyes of my heart have been so filled with my self, and my shortcomings.

The Final Quest has shown me that I need to fill my eyes with Jesus. I long for my savior so badly. I desire Him, so much. Even so, it isn't enough for me to want him, because He has opened himself to me, and it's my choice whether I will go to Him, even now.

Lord Jesus, I long for you desperately. I have been so broke down by the trials of marriage and the life that you have called me to. It is hard. I feel attacked from all sides, and filled with paranoia. Lord, I thank you for the faithfulness that you have shown me over the course of my short life. I thirst for you, and even as my eyes grow dark for lack of faith, I know that you will always be there for me. Jesus, I can't express in words how much I love you. You are my life. You are the only one who loves me and knows everything I've done. You know my heart, and you still love me. Lord, even in my desire to give you praise for all you've done for me, I still find myself. I gravitate to my own singular soul. Lord, I want to be overwhelmed by your glorious face and not shy away. I don't want to turn from your beauty. Give me words to speak of your majesty.

You are my standard. You are holiness. You are what righteousness means. You are the Son of God. You showed me what true power is. You gave me everything you had. You took my accusations without condemning me as you well could have. You cried vulnerable tears of grief rather than turning away from my brutal sin. You let me crucify you. You let me consume your life, so that I wouldn't have to bear my own guilt.

You gave so that I could give. Lord, now I really want to be like you. The veil has been pulled back from eyes, I desire to give the way you give. I want to bear the accusations and the humiliation for the sake of my accusers. I see how incredible and miraculous you are, and marvel at you strength now that I try to take it the way you did. You are truly the Son of God. What you did is impossible for man. Jesus, help me! I want to lay down my rights, I want to give my life so that other will have grace and love and acceptance. Let me be a vessel of that living water. Jesus. I want you. I want to have you in me, being that all the time. I know that it is true and I rejoice! I know it is. Lord, what I am you know. You know what I am without you, and how I even desire to glorify my brokenness instead of you. I'm consigned to make this about me. HELP ME! Jesus, fill my eyes with only you so that I won't hinder you living out of me. To be enraptured with you at every second of my life is what I desire. Lord I want to lose my life. I don't care about ambitions to succeed in the world. Let me only invest the gifts you've given me to further your glory. Let me just worship you with every single thought and breath.

Jesus, I am desperate for you, and words will not describe my longing. I rejoice that you are here in me. Tell me of who you are. Let me lose myself to find you now.

My child, I love you dearly. I will carry you through what comes in life. I won't forsake you. I will not leave you. I am God. I am love. I have created this world and I will accomplish my victory in every life that I have called. You are among the chosen. You are my child. It is the highest honor to be my child. The spirit of my Son is in you and you are as He is to me, because you have received him. Don't be afraid for what the future holds, and don't be afraid of your own sin, but fear only me, and you will know the path.

The Answer

2010-10-04T09:44:00.000-07:00

...seems to be the question.

I reread a bunch of my old post from back when. I was striving really hard to distill some chunk of wisdom into a piece of coherent writing. I wanted every one to capture the essence of the wisdom I thought I had. Looking back over what I wrote and then comparing my life to the ideas I was expressing at the time, I see a big disconnect. I was compensating for the this enormous lack of understanding I felt within by writing all these massive discourses of thought about how my life ought to be.

I realize now that the wisdom that I sought after was not the kind of thing that I could capture in writing. At least not in a direct sense. The forward approach of capturing God through writing is not very effective, actually quite the contrary. But, to say is can't be done is not my intention either.

I see now that the only means to expose God through any creative medium is to fellowship with Jesus. I'm still shaky on how to translate the relationship into a communicable form. It seems that I have to lose all other things to find him, or at least loosen my grip on them so much that it seems to me I will lose them. Then...well, frankly I don't know what happens next. I will find out now.

SOS

2010-09-29T00:16:00.000-07:00

Lord, I'm angry. I don't think actually angry. It's just the level at which I'm registering this emotion. I'm probably sad and hurt. But for the sake for the sake of this conversation I will say I'm angry. I feel like tearing something down. I feel like there is no place for me in this world where I can let it all hang out. I want to open the valve of my heart wide and let it all coming pouring out, but my Christian ideals about how I should I act and worries about what people will think....all the thoughts about how will people will placate me to get me to shut it off. I'm sick of letting it out and having everyone give their empty platitudes. Lord, I feel like we haven't had a talk in so long that hasn't been fettered by doubt. I want to know I can hear you and stop doubt your gentle, comforting voice. I've come to depend on you speaking to me, but with my "hearing abilities" in question I feel hung out to dry. Like the disciples when they said, "to whom will we go, Lord? We've left everything for you, we've got nowhere else to go. There I am. I hate that I'm grieved of my dependence on you. Yes, I know it's redundant. But Lord, You've incited this raging desire for your presence and power and love and now it seems that you've left me with no access to any of it. I don't blame you, well I guess I sort of do. I mean, it's my fault for sure, but I put all my faith in you to give me righteousness and goodness that I long ago realized I couldn't achieve of my own effort, so I guess I do blame you. I at least sit here with a scowl on my face waiting. And even if I am holding myself back from what you are trying to give me, I tell you now, I don't want to! Help me stop hindering myself! I know you took the blame on the cross so we don't need to hash that out again. So. I just want you Lord. I just want you to do miracles through me. I just want you to heal my heart so I can really love people and not feel like a liability waiting to blow up on some one, or step on somebodies toes. Really, honestly, sincerely I tell you this Father: I feel like if I was to say everything that I wanted to in total freedom that I would be outcast from every place on earth. How can I live when I can't open my mouth? I restrain myself so much. I hate it! I hate holding back all the time. I hate being afraid of offending people. In all honesty my frustration about not being to just speak about you all the time is making me very angry at them...and me. And then what have I got to witness? Hate? Dissatisfaction? Anxiety? "Hey everybody! Let me tell about how anxious loving God has made me! Who wants to sign up?"

I'm sorry Lord. You are good. I just don't know what to say. Father I'm so angry and misguided. I need you to set me straight. I know the things I'm saying or out of line, but I can't right myself, so I bring you what I've got. Please work with me. Please honor my honesty. I'm a poor man, I have nothing to offer you. I'm a lowly sinner, I need you mercy. Please be kind to me. I know you will. Help me weep for the overwhelming goodness you show me. You are so beautiful to show me such grace. I'm a bummer of a kid. I hate that I put myself down so much. I know what you think of me, and I know it doesn't line up with this self-pity. But Lord I'm a helpless beggar, with no legs to carry myself to salvation. Please come to me! Oh Father. I'm so sad and hurting. Please comfort me. Please. Please. I want you to hold me and hide me away so I can cry until I'm done crying. Can I scream and beat your chest as you hold me until all my anger goes away? I want to hurt someone for all the hurts that I have in me, will you let me hurt you? Jesus I don't want to but I don't see another way. I don't want to be a savage. I don't want to kill you over and over in my heart with my sins. Jesus. I need you to make me pretty and new. I need you to wash away the ugliness in me. When are you gonna do it? Do I need to know more of how deep and ugly my sin runs? I know more than most and it seems that I haven't even scratched at the surface. When will I be freed from my efforts and burdens? WHEN !?

I don't have the energy for a sustained outburst. I want to be free. Free to be. I just had a taste, but then i get bogged down by the anxiety all around me. I don't know who to trust. I don't know how to trust. I'm still in this big ugly mess making the same tracks in the mud. But no! I'm new. I have the power of faith, the permission to stake my claim on some divine goodness that I don't at all deserve. I deserve it because I take it freely from you! You died for me! oh yes. Okay. This is good. I get it. I can't take comfort from moping any more. No way. You set me free. You did it! I'm holy and blameless and righteous and perfect and lovely and freed from accusation, and it's all a free gift! All because I trust that you did it all for me! Okay. I'm set. Thanks Father. You are so good. You blow my mind. It's like looking the sun. I can't even comprehend you. I love you!

Well...there it went.

2010-09-10T23:44:00.000-07:00

I'm married now! The honeymoon phase is still under way. I think it is doubly good because we went through the post-honeymoon-have-a-dose-of-real-life phase already. Phew. Just looking at her makes me weak.

We rode our bicycles 650 miles together before we got married. We unleashed some serious rage on one another. We struggled against the elemental hurdles of life in vast array. The tiredness, the dullness, the frustration and the blaming. We had a deep taste of the harder side of life. Yes, I know, things will get harder. There are always new challenges. But we have seen the Lord carry us through things that should have ruined our relationship, and these trials have bred in us a deeper faith still in Him.

We both felt the will of God was that we get married. We didn't have a lot of support. Mostly raised eyebrows are what we got. From within and without we felt fears and doubt pecking at us periodically. Our parents were supportive.

I've been wounded deeply by the things that have happened in response to my honesty. I have shown that I am who I am, and tried to be transparent. Many people in my life have responded with replies that I am not qualified for the post of "husband". The question resounds violently in my mind. Am I qualified? Am I cut out for the task at hand?

No.

I am not.

Luckily, this is not a problem. My master, Jesus Christ is the one who qualifies me. I step forward into this role and do not fear for the outcome because He has called me to it and though I don't have all the necessary tools to be a husband (or even know what will be required) I trust in the one who does.

That is all I need for anything in this life.

It's funny that I am married now and all my life has changed drastically since even the last post. I am in place I've never been before. I scarcely recognize the face in the mirror these days. And yet I am still the same, because my life is Christ. My destination, the Way, the Truth and the Life are still the same, though the road has become unfamiliar to me.

I had many hopes riding on marriage. I was nursing some fantasy that once I got married it would be the magic spell that would let me relax. Hah. Hah.

I'm am strangely the same as I was before I took my bride. I am glad for it. I realized that I had so much riding on marriage, and now all that hope has been forced to Christ. I think the let down hit me about three weeks before the wedding. Then I trudge toward with this fear that the actual event would be a huge let down. When the day arrived I stepped up to the plate with a resolve. I was ready for marriage because I had to finally put to rest my expectations and I could take whatever it would throw at me in the steadfast love of Jesus. I won't say that it was easy or fun to die to my expectations, but it was good.

I've suffered much from writing honestly and speaking honestly to the people that are in my life, but I have gained much and have been given the assurance the Spirit in me will help me stand in faith in Jesus Christ alone and no good work of my own. What people will say about me is not my concern. I serve God, not men. Humility and meekness are for me a freedom from being judged and ruined by every wayward opinion.

I haven't had a lot of support in the decision to get married. But I have had affirmation from God. Though it may seem foolish, even to me at times, I count the guiding of the Holy Spirit something precious. I want to be serving Him and obedient to Him when the whole world says I'm a lunatic. To know that I could and would stand firm in the Lord even if I stand alone is what I want. To know that I will.

With that I rest my case.

Exponential Growth

2010-09-01T12:49:00.000-07:00

God has called me to live a life of unrestrained obedience because I have been shown His goodness. I cannot disobey the Lord when I consider how good and faithful He is, namely in the offering of His son to die to for me and extend to me inalienable salvation.

To know that He is good is to trust him and I do. So I obey Him because I know that He guides me without letting me be misguided and His will is the best for me, because He loves me so much. He gave everything for me to prove it. I trust Him, and now I have the authority to silence all doubt and fear in the name of Jesus, the name of unquenchable, undeniable Love. He has given me all power to overcome because He has already accomplished it all!

The Lord to whom time is a servant has created the world and redeemed it.

Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart, (which is His heart).

On Crashing

2010-08-04T18:04:00.000-07:00

what is happening. i trusted. I left behind my backup plans. I am hurtling toward a bike trip, and a marriage that seems impossible. I suppose the the wise thing to do would be bail out, get a sensible mind-numbing job, and stay single because I can't seem to get close to anyone without hating them, at least some of the time.

But God has told me to do these things that I embark upon. Even though I don't see how I can ever be a decent husband when half the time I feel more like running away, and I don't see how I am supposed to make it all the way anywhere on a freaking bike. Yep. It feels like I'm falling. But the end game result is that this is life has nothing to offer me except Christ. That's all. Everything else is waste. Everything else is passing. My aging body, by half-assed relationships, my struggles, everything I keep occupied with, all a waste if not to receive Jesus.

I hate having to fail. I hate when I feel like the thing I want to do the most is the worst thing I could do. I hate when I don't believe. I hate when I abuse people instead of letting Jesus take the abuse. I fuck-up so much. The times when I don't fuck up are blurred together with the times I do. when does it all stop. I am just tired. and tired. and tired. what am I supposed to do if I don't feel attracted to Shantel all the time? Does that mean I should quit? Does that mean the relationship is a failure. This relationship....dang. If it doesn't feel a certain way then i feel like shit. I hate that. It feels like this relationship is ruling me. Like I have to appease "the relationship" if I want to feel good. Can I dive into the mess knowing that it's gonna be a mess and maybe even a "failure"? Pshhaa. What is a failure in Christ? Nothing. Nothing. Do I want to keep on messing up and being a prick and feeling torn in half between catharsis and peace? Ugh.

Okay. Jesus. You are it for me. nevermind the mess of Shantel and I, nevermind what people will say about us, and about me. Nevermind if they all think i'm a douche bag and that I'm whatever they may say. I've got you. I believe in you. You are my lord. You are my life. Okay. That is okay. I've got enough. I've got enough now. oh the air is so sweet. Thank you lord. oh jesus. Thank you for saving me form the messes. From sin. I surrender everything to you. I give up my life and let you have it all, because if I don't I will ruin it. It's yours. You live my life for me.

How Deep the Father's Love for Us

2010-07-29T07:18:00.000-07:00

today. I leave home. I leave South Dakota. I came here hoping for a reprieve from real life. I got a reprieve from trusting God on the level that I have been trusting him for the last couple months. For what seems like so long now I was trusting him with every decision, well, mostly. I was trusting him with bigger issues than I have to deal with when I'm sleeping under my parent's roof. Now I head back out into the world (as though this place is annexed from it) and I return to the raw sense of needing to trust God, not my parents, for support. At first thought I consider it to be better to be in that state of conscious dependence on God, to be aware of how much I need Him. But in a broader scope of the situation, my judgement seems skewed. I am here at home feeling like I don't really need to trust God for my next meal or safe place to sleep. The realm that my parents have created makes it seem like those kinds of things are a given. And I instinctually say that they aren't and that I should be more aware of the presence of God providing those luxuries day after day. While I believe this is true, I also think that I need to accept more grace for myself and my parents, because in reality we never know the full extent of God's infinite providence. We don't know the complexity of the circumstances that He has arranged for us to exist and thrive or even survive. So, I come home and it seems like my awareness of such things diminishes in comparison to the way things have been; is that okay? Does He still continue to provide in the face of my lacking gratitude?

He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. -Matthew 5:45

This shows His glory. What a mysterious, self-sufficient God that can give beyond the measure that those receiving can even understand much less thank him adequately. He is truly amazing. I feel so unfulfilled when I give to someone who will never know that I helped them. Yet God shows me that He can do it and be ever-joyful.

Praise you, Lord. Let me glorify you by my weakness and your mighty power working in me. Let me be humble, receiving your Spirit to do the work that I so long to do. Let your love make me faithful. I pray that your will be done, and that I accept all that you do as good. Let me see that no tradgedy can be befall me that won't be transformed by you into blessing, and that it is already so because the context that Jesus created by life, his death and his life. Amen.

Person

2010-05-30T21:13:00.000-07:00

I just made a public profile. I hope I don't get famous. But I do. But I don't.

Shoot. Jesus. I'm famous, huh?

Yeah. Well. Fame can't ruin me. Everybody will know who I am soon enough, because everyone who is anyone is family.

At any rate, fame is Jesus'. He started this whole thing, He's the ringmaster. And everything corruptible in me is dead on the cross. I'm not afraid of fame.

I wouldn't mind everyone seeing what's going on here though. Jesus, you're doing some great work. I won't be afraid to be earnest and sincere, even though that isn't very chic these days. I won't say whatever. I'm going to be...honest. I would love for every one to see this, see me, because I want to love more people and I want to be loved by more people. I won't be self-depreciating because it is hip. God said that when we love each other it is the full expression of Him, so I'm down for people to love me and I'm down to love others. More God!

Grateful x 100

2010-05-18T16:30:00.000-07:00

1. Jesus' love for me
2. Freedom from sin
3. The ability to love fearlessly
4. Yellow shoes
5. Wisdom
6. Peace
7. Camping
8. Book bags
9. The Alexander Technique
10. "The Secret"
11. My cowboy wallet
12. My beard
13. Shantel Nichole Lockett
14. Cheesy sax solos
15. Guitar
16. Electric drum sets
17. Bike trips
18. Billy Bones
19. Computers
20. Blogs
21. My siblings
22. Children
23. Thai food
24. Sushi
25. Lists
26. Afros
27. Shantel's smile
28. The Artist's Way
29. Parents
30. Caleb Mitchell
31. Jimi Hendrix
32. Africa
33. Persian Food
34. 12 oz. Decaf Americanos with no room
35. The number 1
36. Surprises
37. Kept promises
38. The Holy Spirit
39. Epic Sagas
40. Moshe Feldenkrais
41. The Street Bean
42. Dreams
43. Simplicity
44. Wonder
45. Hands
46. My fingers
47. My teeth
48. My tattoos
49. My body
50. Lauren Overholt
51. My brown pants
52. Popping zits
53. Farting
54. The Bible
55. My blue sweater with the rip in the shoulder
56. New Horizons
57. Enemies
58. Swimming
59. Fish
60. Space
61. Forests
62. Bridges over creeks
63. Books
64. Reading in the woods
65. The stars
66. Running
67. Trampolines
68. Busking
69. Soccer
70. Ice skating
71. Brains
72. My intelligence
73. My life
74. My desires
75. The Beatles
76. Radiohead
77. Comfy chairs
78. Miracles
79. Marijuana
80. Cookies
81. Inventing
82. Lasers
83. Critical Mass
84. Pink gorilla suits
85. Billy in a pink gorilla suit
86. Gorillaz
87. Free association
88. Metacognition
89. Tracing my steps backward in thought
90. Diving boards
91. Elementary school band
92. Jake and Abby Grove
93. Being loved
94. Forgiveness
95. Traveling
96. Freedom
97. Triumphs
98. Ends
99. Beginnings
100. Mystery

Wonder

2010-05-18T16:19:00.000-07:00

God.

He's real.

Inside of me.

I love. Words are so inadequate. I just love.

He is living in me.

Praise God, Jesus, Lord of All.

He has given me all.

Praise the Lord!

Near

2010-05-16T10:23:00.001-07:00

The time is coming...the time is here.

The time of what? I was about to write the time that I would move out of my apartment and embark on a journey of homelessness and living in full dependence on God....but that wouldn't be true.

The time is here. Today I live in the bounty of God's goodness. He has given all I need today. And He will give me everything I need, want and desire in Christ, eventually.

So, knowing that He is faithful, and he has made such grand promises, I will live as though I have already the promises He's given me. He is the great I Am. Not the Great I Will, or the Great I Did. Yes, He will, and yes He did, but primarily He is. So I will take Him primarily on that basis. He lives inside me. He breathes life into this mortal body. I do all things through him.

Jesus turned blind eyes into seeing eyes. Jesus made crooked legs straight. Jesus materialized bread and fish and wine. Jesus walked on liquid as though it was a solid. Jesus told a dead man to live and he obeyed. Jesus's died and then started living again. Jesus flew into heaven on a cloud. For real.

I claim to believe that this very person is occupying my being. And yet I don't expect to see him acting the way he did in the only story I have ever heard about him when he had his own body? Hmmmm......disconnect.

It's time to start believing that the God, the Master, the Owner, The Controller of the Universe and things even greater really lives in me. What is it he can't do? Nothing. Time to reckon with the power that I have been given, and expect in faith the results.

Love!!!!!!

2010-05-11T15:59:00.001-07:00

Blog! Shantel's hair is the best thing in the whole world. That is all.

Rescue

2010-05-09T12:42:00.000-07:00

I am in love because I look and see that I am loved.

I am holy because I look and I see holiness.

I read the book "Alive" some time ago and it moved me. Something about the story gripped me so tightly, and stuck in my heart.

I believe the span of life can be compared to the time that the survivors on the mountainside heard the helicopters in the distance. It seems like such a short moment between the time that they first saw signs of their rescue and the time that they were back in their homes, especially compared to the seemingly eternal 72 days of waning hope. But even as it was such a short moment, it was big enough to encompass all of this life, in the light of who Jesus Christ is.

We have heard the report of our imminent rescue. The way their hearts lifted from the doom of the harsh mountains, even at the sound, is what the Good News is capable of. They were already in their loved ones' arms at the sound; they were already feasting; they were already free from the clutches of death though they still sat in the same dirty fuselage in the Andes that was to be their tomb. All at the sound of rescue. All the force of hope came barrelling down like an avalanche at a single sound.

We are that avalanche waiting to be released by a shiver of sound. Every human heart is prepared by the work of Jesus to come crashing down with the force of the Spirit, all it needs is the triggering of a sound.

The Good News.

Jesus

2010-05-09T12:39:00.000-07:00

Another post. I was afraid for a second that if I write too much no one will read my posts. But that isn't why I write is it? Nope.

Today. Jesus.

Tomorrow. Jesus.

The day after tomorrow. Jesus.

The day I die. Jesus.

The day that I fail. Jesus.

The day that I succeed. Jesus.

The day that I live. Jesus.

Today. Jesus.

Walk On

2010-05-07T02:10:00.000-07:00

101 blog posts.

101 moods.

101 views.

101 primal screams.

101 reverent whispers.

101 dichotomies.

101 memories.

101 doubts.

101 miracles.

101 heartbreaks.

The poetry to be created in every moment of every human life is the voice of God. From losing yourself in passion to deep contemplative self inspection, God ranges in the human field.

Jesus, my lord. I am unsure again. I have sinned against you. I've looked at porn. I masturbated. I struggle at this moment to claim your faithfulness. Was it ever anything more than your faithfulness that kept me sane? No. Of course not. Yet I wince with sorrow at my drift from the truth. Why, Lord, do I keep on slipping into the denial of your faithfulness? Why do I continue to act out of a fear that you won't be enough, good enough, fun enough, happy enough, loving enough, gentle enough, patient enough, generous enough?

I don't want to masturbate any more. I don't want to lust any more. I want to be secure in you, and know it so deeply that I am not motivated out of fearful deceptions to sin. Let me be confident forever more that you are in me, and that I am free from condemnation, that I don't need to degrade myself with unworthy behavior, with self punishment. Let me know that I am worthy to do good, and that it is right for me to be righteous for who you are in me.

I tell you Lord, though I know you already know,(it's more for my sake) I have felt that it is so much harder to do good for fear that someone may think I'm not worthy of it, though I have longed to do a good work many a time and not acted. I fear people being offended at my selflessness. I fear they look at me and hate me for the conviction goodness brings to them. I fear their jealous hatred of my taking the good portion you have given me. I'm scared God. I don't want them to hurt me. I don't want them to abandon me if I strive to do your work. I don't want them to think me a prude. I don't want to be called a square. I don't want them to leave me out. I don't want to be a loser to them. Yet, over and over I fall into sin because I am too scared to claim the fullness of Christ in me, so I continue to act out a different identity: that of a sinner, of a godless, empty vessel. Help me believe that I am set from the lie, and from the sin, and that no darkness is in me as I am in you.

Make me know always that I am in you and worthy to be your servant, that I am adequate as I am in Christ, perfect, perfectly equipped for a holy and righteous life, without blemish, just as you are without blemish.

I will confess my sin and bear no shame for the things I have done, for I believe that they are entirely absolved by you. I will fear no rejection, because I long for you above all.

Thank you for the peace and the assurance that I have in you, Jesus. Thank you that you erase the debt of sin, the hanging over debt that would crush me. I will grieve with joy. The sorrow that I have missed the mark will be tempered with the certainty I cannot miss The Mark, because he lives with in, and steadies my aim on you.

What can your servant say, now? I just want to talk to you. I'm addicted to words. I could go on and on. I just love you so much and I wish that I could just pour my heart out without incessant talking. I could just spew forever. Would I say anything that really captured the prey my hearts hunts? No. Probably not. Even so I feel compelled to talk, or write, as in I can't stop.

God. I love all you have taught me, yet I struggle not to let it cloud the simple truth and function of the Good News. You are faithful, Jesus proved it. You don't give up, and you have paid the full price. All I have to do is believe that, in every situation, no matter how irrelevant it seems, it is the most effective work, and the only work. It is the truth of your faithfulness that over arches all other activity.

You will take care of me, make me perfect, and you have done it all in the Cross, by dying and rising. Okay. Rest. No worries. You have got me. I've got you. Good News. Good Night.

Love Has No Limit

2010-05-05T13:31:00.000-07:00

Tight.

I can love people and not be compelled to react to hate. I have the power in Christ to love without ceasing. I don't have to judge anyone. I can look for Jesus in every single eye I meet, and love regardless of the reaction or reception.

No one can stop me. No ill-tempered response can deter me. No one can steal the joy of love from me. No matter how hard they abuse me, no matter how hard they hate, I have the ultimate power of the universe residing inside me. Love. Jesus had the spirit of God in him, allowing him to love without fear, and he has given it me.

I can love every one as I love Jesus, because I believe that he has really made peace with the entire world through his own sacrifice for us.

I can look at every person as though I know them, because I know that Christ is in all, whether they believe or not. I can be so bold and so fearless. I trust him. He is that strong.

I can respond to hate with love, real genuine love. Love that searches for a root of good even when there isn't one apparent. Love that really cherishes God in all of his creation, even those who don't yet believe. Even in those that hurt me. It used to seem an enormous sacrifice to love and hate those that would hurt and condemn me. Now it seems mostly selfish because I am only refuse to let them cause me to hate and judge, refusing to let them cause me to hate and judge myself with them. I choose to keep on loving, because loving feels better, even when it hurts.

If they recieve my love when they hate me, then I have a friend! If they refuse then I am avenged, punished by their own pride and inability to recieve grace. I simply cannot lose since God is for me. Love is the ultimate weapon, because it creates unity and drives away those opposed to it to destroy themselves.

Wooo!

It's all because of Jesus.

Hallelujah

2010-05-03T20:32:00.001-07:00

Praise. Pure and simple. By choice. By compulsion. By existing.

Thank you Jesus, for giving me the proof in deed that the world is redeemed, and the hand of your Father reaches throughout.

Let there be no darkness in me, no thought of impurity. Let me not consider the evil deceptions of this world, and devote my mind to the contemplation of your perfect truth that consumes all.

Let me not waste time trying to understand the problem when you have already solved it.

Let me loose wildly indiscriminate strokes of love, full of passion like a child. Let me be consumed by the needs of the world around me to be renewed in your infinite power. Let my desire to spread the light of the truth crash like waves on the landscape, being broken only to come again with another swell of love.

I have fallen apart so many times, and you have raised me from the ashes every time. Every time.

The flow of this story is being narrowed and refined, as the scope broadens. The possibilities of my life flood the plain as the dry patches of doubt and barren fields of fear are squelched.

The model, the metaphor is the only thing adequate to encompass the undefined truth of the promises you have given me. Yet with my blind eye I see the future, I feel its warm outline in the ever lengthening rays of events passed. The past creates an image of the future, and the beginning belies the end. I Am.

I am, too. I am. I am. In. I Am.

Like riding on the tail of a comet, I follow I Am into being, into all, always.

I wonder if, since it started when He started it, I have always been a part of it. He crafted me in my mother's womb, a statement of the past, for every being to ever hear it. He died for me while yet a sinner. Past. He lives in me now. Present, always, even when the present was the past, and so shall it be in the future, as he promised. The promise: Eternity. The future, which is a present yet to be. Are we eternal even now? When time stops and the movement of the universe comes to an end, will we cease to quiver with joy?

So we are. The Kingdom of Heaven is near. The time for those who believe to experience the joy of salvation is now, for it is finished, perhaps even as it started.

I will go now to my home. I will lay in my bed. Perhaps another night will pass, and another sunrise will occur. Even so, I will sing in Heaven this very moment. I am here. The future is simply the glory of God, as yet to be revealed, but fully revealed from the beginning.

Yet, I still hear my own heart whispering with an uncontainable grin,"I can't wait."

Mixed Messages

2010-04-27T16:46:00.001-07:00

Friends tell me I'm great. They say I have a lovely voice I play guitar like a champ. Sometimes I believe them.

Then people that don't care about me give me scowls and mutter insults under their breath when I play in public. People look away. They tell me I sound terrible. (Someone actually went out of their way to make sure I knew.)

Jesus says I am complete in him. Does that mean I that I Jesus is a mediocre musician?

Why can't I just feel like I am good enough?

Why do I always push past "enough" to the point of "too much".

I am sick of trying to be a success at music. I'm sick of trying to do it freely. I'm sick of trying to be whole before I try to perform. I'm sick of trying to be real in my music. I'm sick of getting rejected and discarded and ignored.

I'm sure I'll be back at in a week. Fuck.

One

2010-04-19T11:26:00.000-07:00

Vomit my words on to the page. Blech. Leaves a bad taste in my mouth and a mess to clean later, when I feel better.

People in my life...are they what I need or are they what drags me down?

I wish I could stop trying to find the root of the problem and just focus on the solution. I feel like the world at every turn says "Look over here! I've found the real problem!" drawing my eyes from the solution. The problem is the problem. I know what is good and bad inside of me. My heart still knows. Perhaps I will commit the greater atrocity in neglecting evil to sort itself.

Abuse would seem the greatest in violence, but I say the greater crime is neglect. Imagine the torment of the enemy ignored. God is never so cruel. Consider the abuse of the atheist, trying to build a mental frame devoid of God whilst borrowing His materials to do so. Imagine the child ignored, never knowing whether they are loved or hated, only knowing that they can't know.

Evil. If God is sovereign over all, evil must come to fruition in nothing. Nothing. Then the appropriate response to evil is not to attack it or ferret it out with fervorous vengeance, but simply ignore it's siren's song by searching for good.

Like a light dispels darkness, good dispels evil. But seeking out darkness to further the spread of light is like breaking dishes just for the sake of mending them. The work is finished! We don't need to go searching for wrongs to set right unless we are still unsure that good has been achieved already in it's fullest capacity for us.

A problem based approach to finding a solution means that we assume a evil is necessary for good. Does this mean that I don't think there are problems in the world? No. But I do think that the Solution, Jesus, is greater than the problem and will exist forever more after the problem is eradicated.

If there was a cure for cancer, and people started taking it they would be healed of their ailment. They would stop taking the medications that they needed to deal with the symptoms, they would stop having symptoms. If they didn't believe that they had been healed even though they had, they may keep taking the medications they previously needed for the symptoms and they would get sick again. So it is with us Christians, who have been administered the cure of Christ's death for our sin and his ressurrection for our lives. We don't believe that he has done all we need to be absolved of our guilt and enabled to live holy lives, so we continue to stab at the symptoms of lovelessness and treat our illness as though it is still reigning in our bodies.

"Be transformed by the renewing of your mind"

I am forgiven of every sin I have ever committed because Jesus died the death I should have. I am full of God's Spirit because Jesus lived the life I should have.

He traded with me. He lived the sacrificial life, sold out to the will of God. I get that. He gives it to me at all times. He died the death of a criminal, a murdering rapist, a thief, and a blasphemer. That's what I have to give. I gave him that. He showed God's glory in resilience, by bearing what I could not while at the same time giving me what I needed all along. And this did not spend him. Nothing could spend him. Like a celestial Energizer Bunny. That is glory. He gave the entire world the love they need without being spent. He is the best and he died for the worst. Could there really be any question whether Jesus was God? No one but God could have done that.

Since it was so miraculous that he did something so selfless, an act that I know by virtue of my own selfishness is really quite impossible, I choose also to trust that he could live inside me, make me perfect and capable of doing all that he has done. If Jesus could bear all the accusations and the punishment without fearing that it would be too much for him, then I will trust him. He saved the world by showing that good is greater than evil. No cosmic struggle, God is just the biggest dog in the park. He came to to demonstrate that Good wins. Always. None of our crimes can keep us from God unless we choose to believe the lie that has already been dispelled on the cross. Evil will not prevail. It is already crushed by Good. Don't wallow in the dust any more. Come be part of Good. We're all invited, and there is vacancy.

The table is set. Come and eat.

Getting to where I Am.

2010-04-06T01:33:00.000-07:00

Masturbation.

It's a reality. I'm a Christian and I do it.

Whew. Okay, there it is. It's out.

What about it? Well. I'm recovering from shame.

It's important for me to claim Jesus' righteousness as my own. While I'm at it, I suppose my secretive eating and hygiene habits ought to get the wash down of Jesus' love.

I masturbated recently while reminiscing photos I had stole peeks at from a magazine in the grocery store around the corner. I wanted to look at the magazine again the other night, but I realised that some of the kids I "minister" to at New Horizons frequent the store. I was driven by shame momentarily away from the smutty magazine.

I wake up every morning feeling this kind of whirlwind stirring in my heart. I eat immediately to still the emotions that are stirring from a night of fasting. I use food to silence my aching heart full of desire and longing. Desperate, needy, dependent longing. It rears its head when I wake and I respond to it by silencing it rather than crying out in faith of God's love. I eat this way all day. Since I quit my fast (three weeks ago) I have been eating this way and gaining weight. I looked in the mirror finally to find that my head seemed nearly round compared to the shape it was before I began my fast.

I struggle to not be disgusted by the state of my body, and the testament it is to my denial of the Spirits power in my life. And yet the Spirit persists. I have done drugs, masturbate in places that I should not have, and been a horrible witness of who Christ is to people who count me as a Christian.

And yet, I will still claim that Jesus' perfect righteousness, his very identity as the Son of God, has been gifted to me. In the face of all these indictments, no less.

Yes. It seems scandalous to me to. How dare I be so presumptuous to claim that I stand before God as one who is holy, as He is holy. Who am I to think that I am exempt from being accused? God says I am, because I believe that Jesus was accused and punished for every of my wrongs.

I'm really at the point where I don't care what happens next. I have tried so hard to stop sinning by every possible means: accountability, positive self talk, denial of a problem, more service and church and "worship", 12-step groups, meetings, introspection, brutal self-scrutiny, therapy, prescription drugs, and God knows what else. None of these things ever set me free from the compulsion of feeling guilty and ashamed. None of them in their greatest moments of success ever offered me a sense of righteousness, a sense of worthiness. So, what have I really got to lose in letting God's complete acceptance have a shot at my sin problem? Not much, maybe some people judging me for not "controlling myself", but really, it's not like I could get any worse.

I've come to believe that even the worst human beings have a basic desire for what is good. So it would seem to me that coming to a point in one's life at which they decide they don't care whether they attain "good" would be a point of dying to that which is central to who you are, your self. Sounds kind of extreme, but then again think about the tenacity of the Pharisees, who, ironical, were one of the few groups to incur Jesus' wrath.

So for me to say that I don't care what happens, as in I'm fed up with trying to make good become me, and really kind of hopeless that I ever will, I'm really saying, God I have relinquished the task to you, and to be completely demoralized by my own ability to get good, I will accept whatever you produce.

Here I am, at this very place. I'm ready to accept that I'm holy and blameless, free from blame. What? Jesus, you say that even in the very moment of my sin, caught with my hand on myself, with my head full of lustful thoughts, you don't blame me? But what will people say? Won't people pick up stones to bring me down if I accept myself like this?

And my love replies to me, "Man, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"

"No one, sir," I answer.

"Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declares. "Go now and leave your life of sin."

With his blessing I can return to the Father, The Source of Life. That's where I'm going. These sins will fall off like scabs under which new living skin is growing and ready to see the light of day. Scabs have no use after the wounds are healed.

I am holy. I am blameless. No one can judge me, because God does not judge me. All that Jesus did in the power of the Father I am capable of because I am in him, and all he has is mine.

Jesus, you have given me your faithfulness. You sent your Spirit into me and made me completely new, and gave me eyes to see what you have created. I know who I am now, because you revealed it to me.

Thank you, Jesus.

God's Voice

2010-03-25T16:22:00.000-07:00

Can it be so good?

I so much hope so. What if I'm wrong? Then what? I have no where else to go. I will continue to believing he loves me, no matter what happens. I have no other choice. I refuse to believe he doesn't, because such a life would not be worth living.

All this to say I'm scared. Really. I want so much. I want it all to be true, and even more than I have hoped for. I'm taking a new risk today, believing he speaks to me and I can adequately hear him virtue of His own strength and faithfulness.

Uh...I don't think I could hinder his plans. Abraham veered, and yet God was faithful, and then he believed. So it is. I've seen Him be faithful, I believe. I'm scared, but I don't think that negates the faith that refuses to die within me. No, it definitely doesn't. I still believe although the possibility of having believed in a lie is a substantial fear. Not substantial enough to keep me from taking the risk and hoping for a greater deliverance and frankly, miracles.

He will do it all. I trust him and his words. God be with me now. Give me strength and faith to hope beyond hope that you will show yourself to the world. I'm so overwhelmed by my own weakness, and yet I hope for great, impossible things to be done by you through me. I long to be used by you.

Make me fearless and loving. Fill me with your truth and let me be overwhelmed by your power instead of my weakness. I long desperately for you, God. I want to touch you and feel you. I want to go and tell every person I meet about how faithful you are. I want to love them with out a fear. Please make it so. Let my eyes be opened to see things how they really are. Let my legs be healed so I can walk in your steps.

I"m counting on you God. Don't let me down. You're my only hope.

Here is Always

2010-03-05T13:45:00.000-08:00

Everybody must read "The Singer" by Calvin Miller. Amazing.

I want to say something as straight forward as possible. God's presence is real and attainable. He makes life livable and all things are brought to submission under the peace he brings with him. Perfection that can't be marred by my failures, and yet still belongs to me. That is a gift.

Jesus is in me. God is in me. I can hear his voice and and sings his love to me, day after day. It sometimes seems too good to be true, but then he comes and sings again, and the doubt washes away and I am swept up in his gentle current of peace.

Sweet One, The Giver of my Life, I take freely, I owe everything to you. Stoke this burgeoning flicker to a blaze, I want to give the world the warmth you have shared. I will wait for your Spirit to move me to show what you have made me, all beautiful and new, full of infinity.

As you are here with me, the waiting is joyful, hardly waiting at all.

Thank you.

Carry Me

2010-03-02T13:46:00.000-08:00

My legs are heavy. Steps have become precious. Now more than ever I know you're the life making the body move. I feel you every second. Each labored breath sighs a "please" and a "thank-you".

You told me today that you would never get tired of how needy I am, never get sick of me, never tell me you need a break from me for little while. You told me that I could never want more than you want to give me. You told me you'll never stop holding me, never stop listening to me, never stop talking to me.

You said you want to be with me every second of every day. You said you would never leave me.

Who else can tell me that? Nobody. I believe you because you are God.

I love you because you put the spirit of love inside me, your Spirit. I can't wait to learn to taste your life when I hunger for lesser things. I have had but a taste, and every delicious taste sheds light on the horizon revealing how much more of you there is to be had. Each time you fill me there grows a greater hunger for you.

To the people who would say this is all fairy-tale and delusion, I say such is life and I choose the happy fairy-tale, for the choice is ours to make.

To my hero of this fairy-tale, I say thank you with all that you given, and I pray that my requests and my praises be one and the same. True love, you are mine and I am yours.

Ammendment

2010-02-23T12:10:00.000-08:00

That last post was a little presumptive. Last night was vicious. I busked in the bus tunnel and made 9 dollars for 4 and half hours of playing. I get so sick of people walking by like I'm not even there when I'm doing my best to sing my heart out. It is hard to not think that their coldness is indication that I suck and it's easier for them to pretend like they don't see me than give me so phony smile or compliment. Maybe they are just stingy and the best way to avoid feeling so is pretend I'm not there asking for there money. Maybe I am the abomination they treat me like. I wish I could know.

At any rate, I came to the end last night. I was more screaming than singing by the end of it, and I just wanted to shoot arrows out of my mouth and kill every cold body that walked by ignoring me. One of the strings on my guitar started unwinding so bad that it wouldn't hold a tune, and I swore and packed up.

On the walk home I fantasized about someone trying to jump me so I would have an excuse to swing my guitar into their skull. I was mad.

Home. In the bathroom, feeling like I would pass out, I scream as loud as I could muster "GOD, I'M FUCKING MISERABLE!"

Storm to the couch, sit there with head in hands, too tired to move or speak.

Finally I muster, "What do you want to say to me?"

"I love you."

"Ugh, I know."

Minutes pass.

"I'm sorry. Please help me. I'm so sorry. I'm so hungry...please help."

Weakness

2010-02-20T13:16:00.000-08:00

My favorite person said "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak." I'm finding how true that is. All the same, it doesn't matter. God is strong.

I feel so weak and peaceful. The pain of dieing is real. We can stave it temporarily with physical sustainance and distraction but the fact of this leaking system is inevitable. To embrace that death and find God's power perfected in it is the greatest blessing of my life.

Consuming the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ is the food that sustains me. I sate all my shameful desires in his body. I bring the hungry soul and he offers himself to feed it.

I'm fasting for 40 or so days. Initially I loved how it shocked people when I told them, but now I see it only as a testament to God's strength. What I aspire to do is seriously impossible for me. I find that the hunger that I feel in my gut can be transfered to the flesh and blood of Jesus, as easily as asking for it. And it sustains me. It's totally insane!

I love being able to say this and mean it: I love you, Lord!

Life is short.

2010-01-29T17:31:00.000-08:00

Don't tell lies.

I just heard a man ask the library attendent if an email saying you get something free if you give your credit card number was a scam.

2010-01-27T12:10:00.000-08:00

He said, laughing, "Yeah anything that says you get something for nothing is a scam."

Not true.

QWERTY is the wordy.

2010-01-08T13:17:00.000-08:00

I WRITE WHAT I WANT!

there.

okay. now I can go on. fuck. yeah.

Dropping an f-bomb ought to filter out all the people that are going to judge me. I can just hear it. "you foul mouthed sinner! you oughta be ashamed of yourself."

So cavalier. So bold. Foolish, perhaps, but I'm going to make mistakes no matter how hard I try not to. I'm not going to be judged based on how hard I tried. So...

That is scary. What if I'm wrong?

AHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

Okay. Jesus. He makes the wrong right. Dare I claim it? Yep. You better believe I do. I don't care if you think I'm a bastard. He doesn't. He knows me as a brother, and I doubt that Jesus is a bastard.

I love this blog. Some people write little snippets from there lives, updates. Not me. Well, I guess I do, but they are notes from the inner frontier. Maybe that's just my way. I ignore the details of the world passing by around me, opting for the landscape of my heart and mind. I don't doubt that the world around me bears witness to the Creator's truth, but I find it so much easy looking inward.

I want to tell you, whoever you are, who I am.

I am a man.
I am a child.
I am a lover.
I am loved.
I am forgiven.
I am in Jesus.
I am dirty.
I am clean.
I am free.
I am slave.
I am His.

I live.

Scattttterrrrrrrredddddddd!

I wonder what kind of people will read this. I wonder what a glimpse into another mind will give them. Will they savor it? Will they spew my thoughts from their minds' in disgust? I hope I offend someone, only so that I know I am speaking truth. I have seen hope and freedom in others and it has disgusted me, it inspired me to destroy the evidence of something I lacked.

Now I stand on the other side of the ring, tasting freedom. The funny thing about it is that I would have expected to be afraid of people treating me like I would have back then, seeking to destroy me, bring me back down to the mud. But I'm not. Freedom is free.

What can they do? No one can touch me. My name is in the book of Life, and I claim it. I think of the people that would think I'm looking down on them. I hear their voices calling from behind. "What gives you the right to think you're better than me? You're not special, you're living some elitist fantasy." To them I respond: what I have I only reached out and received. No man is denied what I have attained. It is there for the taking. He is there for the taking. No one but you is excluding you from this family.

What am I?

I am a man who, first and foremost, possesses the righteousness of Christ. I live free, hoping that He has and does transform my heart to increasing degrees of goodness. He is my standard of self-evaluation, and no other standard defines me. I am accepted under his righteousness, unconditionally, without any stipulation other than the one fulfilled in my claim. Without consideration to human condemnation and oppression, I stand forgiven and free. No man can judge me, because I am already judged and acquitted of all my sin.

Man, life is good.

Grace is Real!

2009-12-28T21:37:00.000-08:00

Being home seems to put me in a trance. I feel like I lose my sense of self. I feel like I lose myself in the obligations I'm expected to keep. To survive peacefully here I feel like I have to sacrifice my identity.

The worst part about it is that it happens so naturally. Without fail being home has let me to binge on distractions, chiefly food and pornography. I compulsively maintain a level of detachment deeper than usual. Something here drives me to escape myself.

But this time...no. I pretty well covered my resolve to get real, here and every where. The results are in. They hate it. I've been forthcoming about the desires of my heart. I stopped trying to be what I thought they wanted. I just said what I wanted. I said what I believe, without apologizing, without letting their opinions rule me.

I ranted and raved and let it loose. It started by my brother telling my dad how upset his emotional absence made him. Then I joined in and start ripping into him. But then it changed. I realized that picking my dad apart would only leave me empty, with no one to be but "not him". My parents always said that no one loved me more than they did, but they never said God loved me most. So I believed them, for awhile. Then I realized that they could not fulfill my needs. And I was pissed. I set out to expose them as a fraud. I have, for so long been obsessed with revenge, with making them pay for the lie. Tonight I let them off the hook. I stopped worshipping them. I won't have to compromise my needs and peace. I won't have to pretend that I'm desireless to God. He won't be disgusted or enraged by the mess of me. I told them that God's promise means everything. I told them that I would no longer quell my desires because God created me with them. I also said that they told me lies about what I could ask of God. That was a real popular comment. I drove it home by saying I'm sick of being controlled by all the expectations imposed by this family and I am absolutely through being control by shame. About that point my mom interjected with some pretty intense judgements.

I'm selfish, I talk incessantly and only think of myself. I control every conversation, and I am a huge hypocrite, preaching theology and not living any of it. These are true things, and my mother kindly pointed them out. I responded by saying that it was true, but I wouldn't be dragged back into the pit. That just made her more angry. My heart starting beating pretty fast. I was tempted to engage.

But I didn't.

I made the break. I maintained my solidarity and peace even though what she was saying was true. For maybe the first time, I faced the harshest judgement from the person who probably has the greatest ability to hurt me, and I endured it. Grace prevailed!

I went out for a drive.

While I was driving I try to make sense of it all, but I ended up just asking God if he still loved me. That was all I needed. It's still enough.

I came home and told my dad sorry for condemning him, and told my mom that she was right about me.

Another new day with the God of the Universe. I wonder what is next.

Home

2009-12-24T02:05:00.000-08:00

Here I am. I guess I'm not going to finish the story about eating the mushrooms. The only important thing is that Jesus was there, and is still here. He never gave up on me, and I was amazed and fell in love with a savior.

I am home. I use the word loosely. I'm at this place where my biological family gathers every Christmas, staring at the Christmas tree decorated as it has been for as long as I can remember. Something stagnant about this place. Perhaps it's me.

I feel very stifled. I'm a sinner, a redeemed creation with a demand to express myself as sure as my very existence. I will express myself. The variable factor is how I will choose to do so. I want to love these people that look so much like me. I really do.

...but, it is hard.

My scars come from this place, and these faces. Not all of them, but the worst ones.

The memories haunt me. Like ghost among the living they remind me of the consequences of being cursed. I remember how the wounds reopened time and time again when I refused to swallow my impulses to be heard. I simply could not fit into the mold. I struggle very hard to believe I had much choice in who I was as a child in this house. All the turmoil and vicious wars of words. To think that I chose to suffer so bitterly. The only way I can stomach the memories is to think that I must have been compelled to be who I was by virtue of those around me. Why else would I be so monstrous? I had to be. I must have had a good reason. The worst of it was and still is the responsibility.

Being here with them all now restores the pangs of guilty responsibility. I feel the weight of expectation and condemnation. There is no way for me to be here and be me without arousing tempers. To be free and express myself in an authentic way will cost me. It will cost me the illusion of safety this family projects.

If I just am who I am here without engaging in the sick carousel of enmeshment that this family is, I commit treason. As my mom used to put it, "You're bombing your own harbors". People feel left out, I'm selfish and basically a big jerk. The other option is to engage and that inevitably ends in conflict or desolate "peace".

So what am I going to do?

Treason of course.

I am God's child. That is my primary role and responsibility. If, in being that, I get to enjoy my family, great! But, if my commitment to be true to myself and Him is something that they do not like, or percieve as a threat, well too bad. Nobody is telling them they can't be their own person. If I engaged them in the roles of our past, the sickly codependency, then I would only be reinforcing their own denial of life.

I will not be controlled by guilt. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ, and I will not be compelled by it any longer. I choose to be moved by the love of God that has been planted in me.

Phew. I feel good.

Lost...

2009-12-09T13:49:00.000-08:00

Time for me to purge again.

Blech.

I feel so mellow today. As a writer I fear that calm is the death of passion. What have I got to say if I'm not thrashing around like a caged animal? Maybe I'm just medicated. No, well...yes. I am medicated. But I also have Jesus. I know that he's there, striving for me, reaching to me regardless of my resistance. Knowing that changes everything in me.

So much has happened to me in the last week that feel urgently relevant to my trajectory toward God. I hesitate to make an attempt at capturing it all. I would hate to cheapen the things my savior has shown me in trying to bottle it in a blog entry. I will try anyway because in the broad view God has shown that he will not be cheapened, cannot be cheapened.

I ate some mushrooms about a week ago. I had hoped that I would achieve some renewed sense of God. I wanted to feel like I had a handle on the events that were shaping my existence. My grandma dying and and my hatred for my father may have been catalyst. Also feeling like a demon in disguise. So I ate the drugs, plunging into the depths of whatever was there.

It started out really nice. I felt emotionally lucid, like I could express love or hatred to anyone without flinching. I felt like the weight of my soul was finally connected to my consciousness. The words that came out of my mouth dripped with meaning and sincerity. But then came the reckoning that I would soon sober up. Morning was only eight hours away. I had grabbed for a something that would not last. This wasn't right. I started to feel sick. I went in the bathroom and tried to make myself vomit the drugs. They wouldn't come, so I curled on the floor and hollered at my friend in the living room that I was scared.

Some time later I emerged from the bathroom and decided bed was the best place for me, as if I could sleep. The next thing I remember was screaming and trying to claw my way under my bed. My friend (who will remain unnamed for his privacy) tried to pull me out, then I bolted for the kitchen. What happened in my mind was a determination to execute the urge in my soul: surrender to destruction. I felt as though my body and soul were crinkling into a twisted pile of metal. What happened from my friend's perspective was that I dove for the wall above my stove scattering the tea boxes and spices to the floor. I claimed that I was "coming through the wall" and in my mind I felt as though I had to. He pulled me down and tried to restrain me, and I slithered out of his arms to the ground. Then in intervals I wailed out a primal scream. I felt inside I was being challenged to expression. I engaged the call. Then I was spent and returned to my bed.

As I laid there things started to loop. I pulled my face under my covers, rubbed my nose, looked over at a book called "Loving God", then at the guitar cable hanging off my amplifier, then I sat up and spoke to my friend. Then the loop would begin again. Each time, though it was infinitely different than the last and terribly fascinating. In my mind names and faces flew through and I spoke them at random. At this point I lost touch with reality severely.

Names and images from my past, intermingled with images from a book called "Clan of the Cave Bear" all congealed into a panorama of bliss. I heard music and created it as I wanted, feeling as though it was an extension of my soul. Then things got weird. I started blurting out everything I could imagine, uninhibited, surrendering to the perversion that gripped me. All I can remember is that it had to do with penises and vaginas, and it made me feel so incredibly daring at the moment and later overwhelmingly soiled and guilty. In the bliss of the moment I was somehow lead to believe that the Kingdom of Heaven had arrived and the way I felt was the culmination of my long-suffering faith. I thought, I have waited so long and this is so unexpected, of course it is real. At long last Jesus has returned and I am never going to suffer again.

I laid there believing that the Kingdom of God was really upon me, within me. I felt as though I was at last made one with God. I felt music flow through me and I was creating the beauty I had sold myself to. I let go entirely. I remember at some point my friend standing over me, speaking. I must have tried to explain to him that God had established his dominion and our faith was finally vindicated. Then I felt a warm wetness between my legs and the pleasure of release. I had peed.

I believed that nothing could invade the peace and joy that was mine. I really committed to the thought that there would be no more tears, no more pain. This is the only way I can gesture toward the emptiness the surfaced when the piss in my bed started getting cold. I got up and wandered to the bathroom, stripped and sat down in my bathtub. The water was too hot, then too cold and the light too bright, but the dark too empty. There was no comfort and the illusion shattered. I started crying.

I gave up on the shower and tried to sleep on the floor, avoiding the mess in my bed, but then returned to my filth. I laid again in my bed hoping to warm the urine soaked mattress to fall asleep.

Sleep would not come. Crying quietly for my fear and shame, trying not to wake my friend, I stared at the dark wall. I rose, dressed myself and told my friend I had to leave. Wrapped in a blanket, I set off in to freezing night, tears streaming steadily, blurring my vision as I stumbled along.

To be continued....

Guilt

2009-11-27T16:05:00.000-08:00

I wish I could take a sponge and soak up my thoughts and squeeze them all out on to the page.

I think it's probably futility to try to really express myself in words, perhaps any medium. Vulnerability and honesty are enough, I suppose. Enough that you might be able to translate some of these pictures into a relatable story.

I don't why I'm about to say what I am, maybe I need to feel in control, maybe I just want you to get me. Either way, what I want to say to you is this: please let go and flow with my words. Don't try to understand them, just let them evoke whatever image comes to you from the arrangement of common words I've made. Okay?

The thing I feel now is guilt. There is a line in "The United States of Leland" when a girl tells Leland that she doesn't want to hurt him and he replies, "Then don't." I waver between thinking that I am some sort of anomaly of humankind and thinking that what exist in me must somehow exist in everyone in some way or another.

I hurt people. I do it because it feels good an safe. It makes me feel alive somehow, yet it also pushes the horizons of my guilt further. I want to be close to people. I think I do anyway, but when the prospect of getting close to them arises, nevermind.

FUCK.

There is just too much pain. The f-word doesn't have the edge that it used to. No, I can't seem to expel the rage and hatred in me with that societal weapon. Deeper more insidious forms of manipulation and emotional rape are my way. And here I stop and wonder: is it so insidious because I interpret them as such, or is it the truth? Ugh. What a drag of a thought. It's just begging the universe to paralyze you, like staring into the sun and then crying that you've been blinded.

My grandma is dying. She will probably die tonight. I wept over her two nights ago, screaming choking, losing myself in the grief. That's the beautiful thing about pain, you can forget who you are. You can forget everything and just be. It forces the 'now' on you, and I like it.

My dad is grieving too. I don't want to share with him what I know to be the same pain. I don't want to meet him on the human plane. The story of my life. I pine and pine for connection, and when real opportunity arises, the curtains pull back exposing the self-pity machine churning away, puking out the black smoke of my soul.

I told my mother about how I didn't want to see his face, considering the ineveitable encounter of the funeral. I want to be the star, I want my grief to be greatest. That's the truth. It's disgusting, I know. I would like to say that it's about my grandma and how much I love her. It's not. It's about me crying about how I never got what I really wanted from her. I never gave her access to me, never showed her how much longing I have. I never showed her my desperation. When I cried, I cried because she was leaving. I cried as if she was already gone. But she's not.

Evidently she is nearly comatose, drugged to oblivion and barely able to breath much less speak. To be honest I am slightly relieved, I've missed the boat. I will most likely never get to tell her what I feel. Sure, I've told her I loved her plenty of times, but I've never expressed it. Such a selfish thing, it seems, so greedy and destructive my love, or whatever it is that drives me. In any case, I could never have imposed that beast on my poor grandmother.

I did send her a letter telling more than I had ever shared with her, and she never responded. The day before I heard about her state I remembered the letter and hoped to find a reply in my mailbox. I will never get one.

A man named Dan once said that the African woman you see laying on a coffin sobbing has it right. She sobs because she is left behind. Grandma is going to heaven. Soon she dance and sing and do cartwheels with Jesus. Soon I will be laying in my bed alone in my apartment, wondering if I'm really crazy or if it's all an act.

I feel guilt. Grandma did so much for me. Was she really like me, dark and deceitful, secretly selfish? I don't know. I'll never know.

Mom said to me, "Your dad is in a lot of pain, more pain than you, so you need to be there for him."
I replied "Why should I? He wasn't there for me."
"If you can't deal with your dad maybe you shouldn't come home for Christmas."
"Fine." Click.

I feel guilt. How can I do the right thing? He disgusts me. He is me. I hate him, no matter how hard I try to accept him.

I fear I will never know what love is.

In the midst of this, I am a child of God, a new creation. Perfect, holy, acceptable, pleasing and loved by God.

Don't ask me how.

I feel crazy.

wreck

2009-10-11T18:33:00.000-07:00

I want so badly to express myself right now, but I fear to be so downright negative.

I am wrought with guilt and despair.

I must be losing my mind. I wonder if this is what is to be damned. Taking stock of my life makes me think that I must have fallen from grace. I have only descended further and further. And if I haven't, if I'm only deluding myself to fuel self-pity, then I cannot seem to stop.

The truth seems unattainable. "Jesus forgives my sins". What does that mean to the guilt I feel? How do I believe? Is it as simple as saying that I believe?

The dictionary says: "to have confidence in the truth, the existence, or the reliability of something, although without absolute proof that one is right in doing so".

Have confidence in Jesus? I believe all my questions serve as a diversion to avoid action. Oh, fuck me. I'm so tired. What am I supposed to do?

God,
I'm so desperate. My mind and body have betrayed me. I feel I have no where to run. I can't seem to come to you, I can't stop sinning. I can't help falling deeper and deeper into the darkness. I'm compelled to sound competent when I know I'm not. I'm compelled to seems strong when it's obvious how weak I am. I snap like an crocodile when any sort of "love" gets near me. I can't stop pretending to be everything that I'm not. I can't break through to know you. I'm afraid that if I invite you in you will be offended by the teeth that sink into your hand, so I pretend that I don't really want to hurt you. What am I to do with myself? I'm killing myself. Everyday I'm wasting away.

Please turn this around. I can't do a thing.

Art/God/Passion

2009-09-07T12:12:00.001-07:00

Embracing a "career path" in music might be the most elusive thing I have tried to do.

Reasons being:

1.) I haven't got the background. I taught myself most of what I know, and during the tutelage I have recieved I was off in La-la Land.

2.) I don't know what a "musician" does, other than play music. I know I've got that down, but shoot-dang...isn't there more to it?

3.) I haven't got the means for a proper education. I'm broke!

4.) I am about as anti-social as I've ever been. I'm pretty sure this is a networking kind of endeavor.

5.) I feel like a shut-in. Getting out of my apartment is hard enough. How am I gonna make a living publicly exhibiting myself as a piece of art?

Nevertheless, I trudge on. When I started this pursuing the vague idea of professional musicianship perhaps the biggest appeal was the tremendous hurdles that it entails. Maybe I'm addicted to the futility, maybe the challenge. Whatever it may be, I find myself interminably drawn to it.

The fullness of my commitment to music is stifled by one factor: rejection. What happens if I call myself a musician and someone laughs at what i do, or judges me insufficient. I'd be devestated. Much safer to toy with it from the outskirts, saying,"I play music." rather than "I'm a musician."

What is to be gained by claiming it as part of my identity? What is to be gained by putting my entire self into the pursuit? Worst case, I gain the knowledge of what I can really accomplish, for better or worse. If I hold back something I will always wonder if it was the missing piece, the one that would have got me to the goal.

Rewind a second here. There is a part of this whole treatise that has been unaddressed. Terms of success. What constitutes a win in the game of music? Popularity? Wealth? Respect of other musicians? I suppose that I can't answer that without bringing the question into context with Reality as a whole. Jesus, Love, and God's Plan.

What if I do win all those trappings? What is making it big if I lose my soul? The question must change now to,"How can I pursue music in a way that is submissive to God's will?" God is a creative being. Emulating him that way isn't evil, but to what end? Am I building an edifice to Him? How can I?

One thing is certain to me: using music a tool to do anything but glorify God inevitably takes the joy from it. Coming from the standpoint that life in all applications can be worshipful if the application issues from a Spirit-filled heart, I guess that I would need to offer my will up at all time to be traded the Will of God, the Holy Spirit.

For some reason that seems to simple to me. A nice, neat bow on top of this heart-crushing problem. I think this time I'll just take it. I'll just taste and see if the Lord is good.

Negative

2009-09-06T21:48:00.000-07:00

Two is the number of people that have told me I'm the most negative person they know. I wish my first thought had been "you've had a weak sampling of humanity if I'm the worst you know." But instead I was just hurt beyond words. The two will go unnamed but I will say that they both hold places in my life that gave them leverage to really make it deadly to say what was said.

An painfully ironic parallel exist amongst these two. They are both women and they both people I set out to please without reservation. What can I say when my best efforts toward another human being are met with such disapproval. No wonder I've been so isolated the last few months.

In the past I would call this state "being broken" but I'm beginning to think that it is the truth about me and I am just coming to terms with it. I'm not being broken I am broken. I try so hard to live right and it all come crashing down. Something is MISSING!

Now. I've spent the last month under the deepest cloud of depression I have ever known. I'm floundering trying to make a living at something I don't know how to do. I have no friends and I do not exagerate. I have severed every tie in my heart for fear of the rejection-death I have known so well in this life. I can't take any more hurt and my heart is growing cold. I've finally conceded to taking medication, and yes, the symptoms go away if I am faithful to my new god, but the temporary nature of this reprieve tugs at the coattails of my mind.

When my mind is broken and my thoughts only as good as the context they are framed, I face the beast of dreadful nothingness, helpless as a orphan.

Wow, sorry that got dark fast. Anyway, negativity. I had a dream last night and in it I embraced my brokenness, and accepted the futility that I have inherited. I dreamt a moment of peace thereafter.

In simpler terms I think that I need to accept my identity as an addict. Yeah, I do. I have had enough experience to see that I am. Yeah, it's not getting any better. It is not going to go away. I'm tired of fighting it. The outcome really is in God's hands now. I finally am what I am.

Wow, just saying that, it makes the pain of those accusations go away. I am the most negative person. It's true! I am a sex addict, too! A pervert, liar, a greedy little gollum of a man: all me.

If all see what I truly am, the world would certainly turn away from me. A few people have gotten close, and they ran. I have tried to hide and polish up who I really am, my true heart for a long time. I've wanted to make the world think me a great man; I wanted to make them love me. I'm so tired of the charade, so tired of worshipping them. The jig is up. God, have mercy on me a sinner.

Luke 18:9-14

We are drifting away...

2009-07-01T12:29:00.000-07:00

I fear to write anything because doubt plagues my every thought. Call it a perpetual existential crisis. Call it being addicted to futility of thought. Whatever the name for this state shall be, one thing is certain: reality is bigger than my mind and the relations between them oscillate from gentle love to vicious rape.

My battle in life seems to be contained in this so-called crisis. Struggling to land on the Rock, and find myself therein. The digging only stops when I choose the bedrock that Jesus is. The mystery doesn't cease but the threat of it does.

The "digging" usually centers around my motives; scrutinizing my true heart and grasping for the bottom of it. It usually proves to be a maze that grows in correlating spurts to my effort. The rest comes when I throw my hands up and scream for rescue.

The easiest thing in life is to be still. The only problem is that it is against our nature entirely. Ironic, how frantic effort leads to dysfuntion, stress, guilt and futility and faithful stillness leads to ease, peace, inspiration and accomplishment.

I think I may tattoo that to the back of my eyelids.

Did you forget to take your meds?

2009-06-25T20:38:00.000-07:00

This question haunts me.

I remember the first time I heard it. Summer day at church after a service, people mulling around, my mother schmoozing, my brothers and I wrestling. I use the term wrestling lightly here to mean me wrangling and terrorizing them. My mom noticed what a ruckus we were causing and snapped into the dreaded you're-gonnna-get-it-later face. To the unexperienced this can be like jumping into a puddle and finding it far more shallow than you hoped, and jarring your knees and ankles as you impact with the solidity of concrete too soon. Her face was filled malice only her children could detect, but to the observing world she was only slightly amused and annoyed at our antics. The depth of her embarassment would only be known through our latent suffering at her whim. This time she though she grabbed me by the arm and whispered in my ear the curse/question: Did you forget to take your pill?

My stint off medication came to an end recently. I almost lasted a year, a real accomplishment, if you ask me. I've spent a pretty huge chunk of my life on medication so finding "freedom" was so heady. Unfortunately it all came crashing down when I was hospitalized for depression and diagnosed Bipolar II a couple weeks ago. This was coming, I'm afraid. A self-fulfilling prophecy that began it's lore with my first prescription at the ripe old age of 9. The sentence of inadequacy probably began much earlier. I fear that the dependency of drugs has been ingrained in me before I knew any better. Thus I will never know if the drugs work because I believe that I need them and that they will work, or because they actually do.

You may ask, as I have,"Why does it matter, if it works?" The answer is pride and authenticity. Pride because I don't want to need anything or anyone. I want to prove every single bastard that has said I should be on meds wrong. Everyone that has looked down on me, thought themselves better than me, and wrote me off, this is a hatred driven combat. Authenticity because I want to be real. I don't want to be the product of a drug. I don't want to know that a pill I take is the difference between being functional and invalid. The struggle in whole is very much like allowing Christ to be my savior on a daily basis. I have to admit that I am an invalid, that that is my identity; it is me. And to accept that help that medication offers me I have to come to peace with that fact. Same with Jesus: I have to admit that I am corrupt and invalid, that I need a savior before I can receive salvation. This parallel has been the grain of sand that tip the scale.

I still hate that I had to land my self in a psych ward to come to the place, but at long last I have been broken down to really accepting salvation however it comes. I'm beginning to think that real medication is the attitude, not the pill.

It's about time to get back on...

2009-05-27T14:29:00.000-07:00

http://iguessimfloating.blogspot.com/

Neat.

Conflict of Interests

2009-05-05T16:32:00.000-07:00

I'm alive and I am dead. I am black as night and white as snow.

Every time I've ever thought, "Wow. I was such a fool!" was preceded by a moment when I thought, "I'm a genius!" I've thought I figured life out so many times, thought I found the missing piece that would change everything. Maybe this is uneccesary reverse engineering, but I can't helped but feel duped everytime I reach a new level of "glory". Maybe someday I'll stop thinking, "Wow, this is so amazing, but what a sucker I was to think it was good before."

I suppose that I need to trust God a bit. Afterall, things have gotten consistently better. Even though the paranoia that pangs on my mind is strong, I think I'll be okay. So tempting, so seductive and convincing that voice that beckons me to consider my blindspots. It whispers,"You can never know what a fool you really are, just think of all the idiotic things you have done with great gusto. How do you know you're not just charging down another dead end?"
Jesus doesn't always seems to offer answers, but he does calm my nerves.

If only I would trust him.

And even the longing is a rebellion, crying out this futile plea whilst qualifying the kind of help I will really recieve. I need to be rooted and renewed, because my very cry of weakness are still littered with foulness. Throwing my hands up and letting go I find peace.

The choice so often seems to be this: Walk the path that I have known and worn into smoothness that leads to no where, or venture anew down the wild trail through woods uknown into indefinite risk and potential.

Oh Jesus, my love, how I long to stop hurting you, betraying you. I don't understand much. The thing that remains certain is this need in my heart, the neccesity to fill it and your ability to do so. I am ever-baffled by my unwillingness to stay with you. I don't know why I run away, and ignore you. I'm so easily fooled by the lies the float through the air like wisps of poison. My friend, my lover, I am such a wreck without you. Please come rescue me with your love. I want to be swept away by your deep waves of affection. I want to be awe by the wisdom you possess. I would lay at your feet and listen to you voice for ever. Speak to me my sweetest.

Listless

2009-04-29T14:02:00.001-07:00

Blah.

The Sun

2009-04-22T14:53:00.000-07:00

Hang it all! That blasted orb.

Say it. It is fun.

It comes out, revives me from the ranks of the living dead, then LEAVES. Oh, what I would (will) give for the day when there will be no more darkness. Heaven seemed like a such an exorbitant fantasy a week ago, but now I feel its pull, its weight. I discovered how much power light has. Funny, how I used to relish the gloom of Seattle, the sun burning my eyes. But this spring when I felt my heart lift and sing at the arrival of light, the hopelessness of dark was exposed in contrast. How I long for the warmth, the freedom, security of light. The physical characteristics of light are not a far distance from the power of God's love. This spring brought with it an understanding of Jesus being light. I somehow don't think that heaven , in this sense, will be metaphor.

Today I pined for my heavenly home, when I will no longer wonder how long the sun will shine before I'm plunged back into the dark. Not too long now, and I'll bask in his eternal light.

Implode

2009-04-03T12:13:00.000-07:00

The self circles in on itself, spiraling tighter and tighter, collapsing into infinite futility. The self-imposed moral standards prevent any true accomplishment of love. The only result is self-hatred and thus death. I've been pioneering this darkness and I finally reach its ultimate culmination.

This is how it happened.

Hebrews 6:4-8
It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.
Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned.

Hebrews 10:26-31
If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, ²⁷but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. ²⁸Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. ²⁹How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? ³⁰For we know him who said, "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," and again, "The Lord will judge his people." ³¹It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God

I read these verses, took a look at my life, and determined that I may be one who had "enlightened" and then fell away. I had sinned deliberately, sleeping with a girl and rejecting the truth of the cross to resist temptation. The state of my life was one where the fruit of the spirit were not clearly evident. Self-centeredness was the chief trait of my life and acknowledging my destitution of spirit brought out the self-pity.

With no certainty that I was or wasn't the person being described in these passages I fought to "believe". I struggled to claim Christ as my own, yet I constantly questioned myself, saying, "What if you're just lying to yourself so you don't have to face the truth of your fate? Face it: You're doomed. Screwed. You blew it." Thus I confirmed my own fears.

As this struggle continued gradually wearied of the strivings to believe in Jesus' work for me. One night after much agonizing I decided to sit in bathtub and pray. The just-bearable heat of the shower and the pitch black of the bathroom afforded me the perfect stage for what was about to happen.

I screamed to God,"Please help me believe!" I sat there. Only more stony-hearted futility. I felt the darkness encroaching all around. The night terrors that had visited me so many times before reeked of the same stench emmanating from this spiritual place. I contemplated the options as the walls of my reality steadily closed in on me. To continue trying to believe now seemed as preposterous and hopeless as giving in to the flesh that was champing at the bit, waiting to run amok. I then conceded to the ineveitable. I could not control my flesh any longer, I could not "believe" it into submission, and I was irreparably lost. God had left me.

In I went, to the deepest commitment to the flesh. I felt my heart collapse, knowing only terror and stark emptiness, stuck in an endless loop of futility. In the face of crushing loneliness I couldn't cry or even utter a sound. I only sat and stared in shock, knowing that life had left me.

But then, as if there had never been darkness, I knew that God was in control. Out of the impenetrable darkness shone a Light. I knew that He was there, and that because He was there He loved me. I was dead for but a moment, completely crushed by my own weight, then He breathed life into me. Creatio ex nihilo.

I got up out of the bathtub and dried off. The implications of this moment didn't occur for a few weeks. I have been shown exactly what my own abilities are good for. I really believe now at the most fundamental level that God must do everything. As much as I wanted to do what I ought to do, even at a mental level, I could not. My assurance is God's promise, nothing I can do can alter that because He is faithful. I didn't know what a weapon against the attacks of the Devil this harrowing moment in my bathtub would yield, and moreover, what a joy it is to know that I am chosen.

All power really is His. I am His because He plucked me from the pit and shown the faithfulness He promised me. I have been through the bottom and Love is deeper.

Leviathan

2009-02-28T10:34:00.000-08:00

God,

Remember me. Please.

I thought having a contrite heart would be a walk in the park. Self-actualization this is utterly depressing. Needing you is desperate and hopeless save for the possibility that you will deliver me. Please.

You know I cannot even believe that you would save me. I know that you can, but that you will, well, that's a bit more difficult. You took it away. Please give it back. It appears to me that I cannot receive anything that you don't give. I'm lost at sea, the sea of my sinful thought. Draw me to you. Rescue me from swells of doubt.

You're my only hope.

Whateva

2009-02-13T13:25:00.000-08:00

Whoops. Didn't proofread the last two posts. Neither am I going to.

Welcome to my new day.

The past is what it is. The future is secure. And the present, well, I'm working on the that.

What does the present become if you've read the last page of the story? How does knowing the end affect the "now"?

Let's say life is a book. (Haha.) I read the last page of the book, and find out that prince rescues the princess, the dragon gets slain and the kingdom abides in peace forever and ever. What does that foreknowledge do to the chapter I'm reading right now?

In God's logical, does that narrow the possible outcomes of any given situation? Would I be presumptuous to ascertain what is logical to hope for in this life based on the presumed outcome? Or does hope defy all standards of logic at it's human limitations?

What about Abraham? God tells him the end of the story, at least in his context, and then the circumstances get doubtful. He hangs on against all common sense. He obeys. If he hadn't been obedient would God have still fulfilled His promise to Abraham? Was his faith part of the promise?

I'm just going to stop right here, because this train of thought's last station is Futility. Phew, glad I got off before then. Finally, a little real common sense. I suppose this is a good spot to confess my utter dependence on God for the very spark the lights the fire of my thoughts. Yep. Understanding, I believe, is in the actualization of God's words. Did I choose to act and then recieve affirmation, or did I act because I was affirmed? Who knows? What I do know is that I have seen the God is good, and I will pray to continue pursuing his mystery in all aspects of my life.

Garbage

2009-02-11T14:09:00.000-08:00

Last night I came home to the stench of toffee nut syrup. A garbage bag I intended to take out three days earlier had burst at the bottom leaking the entire contents of the syrup bottle across the kitchen floor. It had been a strange day of emotional whiplash thus far and I thought maybe taking care of the looming mess on my floor would be a good start on the mess in my head.

My friend Travis had just called and told me that he didn't feel like hanging out because he was "tired". I silently raged at him for bailing out, when secretly I didn't want to hang out either. I said, "Fine, whatever,"and hung up.

With new bag in hand, I stood there contemplating how to recapture the refuse. I started by lifting the bag from the top while simultaneously positioning the new bag underneath, all the while avoiding the puddle of sugar. The old bag ripped and splashed down in the syrup. I screamed,"God just fucking help me! Why are you letting this happen to me?" Infuriated at the mess that was threatening my sanctity, I had another go and surprisingly I managed the the pile into the new bag. Washing the syrups off my hands, I prayed aloud,"Help me, help me help me..." My phone rang. Travis.

"You can come over if you want," he said.
"I'll be there in twenty." Begrudgingly.

I carried the mess down to the dumpster, still fuming at my God's silence, and started down the alley toward Travis' apartment. Two blocks down I spotted a man in the shadows, and began to pray for protection. As I drew near, I saw what this guy was up to.

In one hand was a piece of cardboard cradling unidentifiable food stuff, and the other hand was was industriously digging for sustenance in the dumpster. When our eyes met we exchanged shame and hunger.

I walked past him and ducked into an entryway and cried.

Out of the Wreckage

2009-02-11T13:32:00.000-08:00

I have felt for so long that I have hemmed myself into this isolation. The very loneliness that defines my inner soul is the thing that has kept me lonely. I fear I may put down my shield and sword in surrender and be cut down rather than receive mercy.

The answer I've been clinging to for the last six months is that I just need to trust in God for intimacy and protection. Then I won't be so scared, then I won't be so desperate. If only I could just trust in God.

I honestly don't know. Do I take off my armor and let the act of stripping be a proclamation of faith? Or do I wait for the confidence from divine affirmation to do so? The first option seemed impossible just weeks before, until I did a "fifth step".

A "fifth step" is what Sexaholics Anonymous calls the act of "admitting to God and to another person the exact nature of our wrongs" and I did it. I made the list ( a "fourth step") then I read all thirty five pages of it to my sponsor. It took five hours. After it was complete I was overcome by a wave of elation, then a melancholy of "what now?" The "what now" was answered when I realized what it meant that I could lay all of my rot on the table and feel free of it.

I still feel that some of the things I told my sponsor were not really "me". I was detached for much of the telling. It made a difference to have him read back to the paraphrased list of sin. Something about hearing another human being tell me what he saw in me when I confessed my sin made it inescapably my own. He sees the manipulative, perverted, greed driven traitor that I am. But also told me that I was forgiven, because God is greater than it all. (By the way, there was much more on his list than what I recounted.)

Repentance is what is taking place in my heart now. I've vacillated between joyous celebration of freedom and despair of the truth of my ongoing brokenness. I'm coming to the realization that my sin is really hurting me, and lamenting. In the last three days I have screamed curses at God and been moved to dancing by my love for Him. The curses contain my repentant desire to be free of my agonizing defects and the dances or for the promise of freedom that I have already tasted.

I hate being cookie cutter, but this is exactly what the SA book said would happen. Step Six is,"Become entirely ready to have God remove our defects of character" and Seven is "Humbly ask God to remove of defects and shortcomings". I confess some of my solicitations of God have been less than humble, but I get my point across.

The conclusion I've drawn from this turn of events in my life is that I can only find the freedom to live if I concede to a relentless stake in honesty. Shoot. I hate getting cornered like this, but I know it's for my own good. All my scapegoating and "clever" ploys to commit nowhere and avoid the truth of my brokenness have come to the light.

God, help me stay free in this honesty.

I'm starting to see that confession and repentance is not an isolated event. Here we go again.

:D

2009-01-30T17:12:00.000-08:00

The eleven minute blog: here we go.

I am sick of being distant from God.

I am sick of not letting go.

I am sick of worshipping things about God and not Him.

I am sick of being negative.

I am sick of trying to be everything to everyone.

I am sick of "fake it till you make it".

I am sick of being let down.

I am sick.

God help me.

Run Through The Jungle

2009-01-23T12:57:00.000-08:00

A man named Hans played me a song for a dollar and fifty seven cents. It had no name. Hans told me that he learned his style from Tupac Shakur. He also told me the song that he performed would not and could not be played ever again. It was a moment in his life relived in lucid reenactment, no doubt embellished to the extent of Hans' epic personality.

I had to stop him in the middle of the second movement of his impromtu rock opera to for my approaching bus. He extended his cracked knuckles for a pound and a "God Bless". The ugly expression of this broken man reeked of prideful pain and need. I ran across the street in a daze, nearly getting run over by the bus I was trying to catch.

So it goes with me.

I chase the prize of life with fluffed bravado, the truth is that is pursues me. It confidently stalks me without doubt, in fact. When I catch it's scent my weapons start to feel like the toys they are. When I feel the torrents of fury in its cry, my airs of courage drop and I cower. The quarry I claim to seek so ferventy is truly my greatest fear, and face to face with the power I fall to my knees and beg for mercy.

My Sister

2008-11-29T10:23:00.000-08:00

Ashley Nicole Martin!

"Who is she," you ask? She entered into my life as Oingo Boingo and I was Ka-Ching. Island Lake Camp was the stage and these were our stage names. I entered her sphere of reality as a actor portraying an actor. At Island Lake there was a reversal of pretense, whereas in the outside world one may shield the fact of their faith behind a world-wise shield of cynicism, in this world the air is dense with judgement and "holy rebuke". I was violently departing from this falsehood internally while flying with kamikaze speed into a stronghold of Christian pride. Enter Ashley four weeks before camp ended. We were friends immediately as is we had known each other for many lifetimes with the simple details of our lives just formalities. She was an oasis of acceptance in this desert of seemingly judging eyes. Thus our sojourn began.

Ashley and I were roommates for a year in a place called Maple Leaf, in Seattle. Our apartment was previously a brothel, with a drive-through. It was a casa style building with stucco and a rotting overhang for a porch. We affectionately dubbed it the "Mexican Whorehouse." Ashley suffered me and suffered with me through depression, addiction, two doomed relationships, and all the other benefits of walking away from Jesus. Through all of this she was a beautiful friend and persevered in spite of my abuse and generally disagreeable state. If love is tempered by trial then, as it stands today, ours is stronger than most.

What makes Ashley a treasure of God would be cheapened if I tried to portray it fully now with my feeble words, but even as dipping a ladle in a raging river will not bring forth the power of that river, it will still give a taste of what makes that river rage.

Ashley is the picture of female intuition. She so often has been the perspective that cures my blind spot. Her gold-green eyes that curl at the edge like Cleopatra, see much more than a face when she looks out. Her vigilant heart sometimes drives her to anxious fear, but somehow she shines even brighter in the midst of desperate need. She channels God's beauty through submission, the fight in her igniting through suffering toward God.

If the laughter that has erupted between us could be bottled it would drown the sorrow of the world. Our handshakes, code words and knowing looks comprise a language all their own. We two people that are violently different endured each other, we bled into one another's lives painfully yet with joyful irreversibility.

She now lives in Portland, but it might as well be Pluto. In moments when the world seems cold and bitter, memories of our friendship warm my soul. God's love runs in her veins and she transfuses those lacking with that sustaining flow.

Faith, Hope and Love

2008-11-28T12:36:00.000-08:00

New Year's Eve.

To a girl.

I want to bring in the new year with your voice in my ear. I want to share what I have, but will it be anything at all? My heart is timid. I long for your great treasure and wonder if my hands are worthy to behold it. I will approach with all the fear and trembling of a priest on the Day of Atonement.

I will inevitably be unworthy, but I will accept grace if it is offered. To enter your presence will be worth the risk.

I cannot wait.

"This is the holiest and the most unholy thing I have ever done"
From "Perelandra" by C.S. Lewis

Plank Vision

2008-11-21T18:50:00.000-08:00

Life begets Life.

Death begets Death.

Love begets Love.

Hate begets Hate.

The world is a mirror and what we see in it reflects our hearts.

Hate begets Hate.

Love begets Love.

Death begets Death.

Life begets Life.

Barbarians in the Nursery

2008-11-21T17:54:00.000-08:00

Is it getting better?
Or do you feel the same?
Will it make it easier on you now?
You got someone to blame
You say

One love
One life
When it's one need
In the night
One love
We get to share it
Leaves you baby if you
Don't care for it

Did I disappoint you?
Or leave a bad taste in your mouth?
You act like you never had love
And you want me to go without
Well it's

Too late
Tonight
To drag the past out into the light
We're one, but we're not the same
We get to
Carry each other
Carry each other
One

Have you come here for forgiveness?
Have you come to raise the dead?
Have you come here to play Jesus?
To the lepers in your head

Did I ask too much?
More than a lot.
You gave me nothing,
Now it's all I got
We're one
But we're not the same
Well we
Hurt each other
Then we do it again
You say
Love is a temple
Love a higher law
Love is a temple
Love the higher law
You ask me to enter
But then you make me crawl
And I can't be holding on
To what you got
When all you got is hurt

One love
One blood
One life
You got to do what you should
One life
With each other
Sisters
Brothers
One life
But we're not the same
We get to
Carry each other
Carry each other

Angry Bastard

2008-11-16T19:15:00.000-08:00

What do I know?

My heart is ragged. I don't have a clue what is going on in my life. I fear that I can't trust my own thoughts. My heart has proven to twist every brain wave to it's dark intentions. If I had a dollar for every time I thought that I had the answer to this darkness figured out I could probably afford counseling again.

My heart wants to wallow in self-pity. I'm inconsolable. I cannot let go of this martyr spirit. I cry out to God with this pitiful, pain-driven moan. I say, "Save me, give me life, make all these promises worthwhile." I honestly don't believe I can keep on going as a Christian if it just keeps getting harder and more disappointing. If God is teaching me a lesson with this darkness, then I wonder when it will be done. When am I gonna get whatever He's trying to say to me? And if this isn't some lesson, well, I dare not even consider that option.

Maybe I will. So say my salvation is no more. Say I blew it. Say I'm Judas, a tool, an example of what not to do. Maybe I'm the seed that fell in shallow ground. I shot up and withered. That's what it looks like to me. I was so in love, and now I feel like I'm outside suddenly not knowing what happened. I fear I wanted too much. Maybe everyone was right, and I just got my hopes up way to high. I can just hear there voices,"You thought you could live without medication? You thought you would be a tool of God? You thought you would ever amount to something?"

I really believed those things. The joy of believing those promises was so beautiful. I was like a child completely content to just know that he was loved. I fear that that love is gone. I'm so certain that everyone has got a Bible verse for me. God loves you this, no one can snatch you from his hand that. What the hell good are those words to me if I can't be sure that I am the one being talked to? I don't know that God loves me. How can I be sure that I'm not headed for Hell? How can anybody?

I came to rely on the feeling that God was giving me. That certainty of my salvation. My heart was set. But now somehow I departed from that certainty and now my heart is guided my mind to see all the evil possibilities. How is it possible to know that God really loves you if you can't feel it? I can't believe the words if I don't feel loved. I feel hated. I feel like I want to die. I can't help myself to even accept love. I am defeated by myself.

I want to scream at all the people who are out there saying, "Look at you sad sack. You've got a roof over your head, lots of opportunities, friends that care about you. Why don't you stop bitching about life, and step with the rest of us. Just suck it up and stop being a baby."

If you have thought those thoughts toward me, then fuck you. I'm trying to be honest with life. I realize my own fault, and if you think that I'm crying over spilled milk, then you have never known love, and have have never lived.

I'm a broken man. I'm selfish. My heart is black. I admit to the world that I have got know answers about life. This is my petition to God: I cannot help myself and I don't think that I even want to. Powerless. Okay? Are you happy now? I take responsibility for my sin. It's all mine, but as I try to find the desire to change I find that I am bankrupt. I have no good thing to offer. I am completely at your mercy. I can't take credit for anything. I've tried. I've given all that I could. It was a pitiful offering if you could even call it that. So it's this again. I feel like I've said this to you a million times. How many more? How many time will I have to learn the same lesson? Why do I have to keep on spinning in circles? I need you. I know I do. I just don't know what to do about it. Do something. Please. I've got nothing to give.

Please do something, God.

Desert

2008-11-08T21:15:00.001-08:00

Empty.

The longing is unbearable.

What creativity was in me has left. The life in my body is mechanical. What remains is a machine that thinks with only one goal in mind and mystery has become my enemy.

Although mystery is the joy of life, I haven't a got a dime to my name to toss into that well. I know that I'm cornered. I'm crushed down into nothing. Good intentions and false hope have betrayed me. This battle called life is confounding. The true complexity of it is as impossible to behold as it would be to see 360 degrees at one time.

I just don't know where to go or what to do. Where should I invest my heart? What can offer peace, what can offer truth? I want to find it in the Bible, but I fear that I foul it up. I can't understand because my mind is bereft of that initial faith. It seems that it dwindled down and withered. I hate to think this because I then have only to believe that I'm doomed, hated by God. How can I tell? It's clear that my self-diagnosis has failed me countless times. I've thought I had something pinned down so many time in the last few months, tidbits of wisdom that would carry me. I thought I had something I could build on, but now my proverbial house is blowing away in the storm. I hate that I am so fluid in all the wrong ways. I writhe around like a snake when someone tries to tell me I'm wrong, but when I trudge through my thoughts I refuse to put stock in anything. I guard so desperately the exterior but the interior is empty. What tragedy.

This seems so disgusting to me. My blog sounds like whiny, self-indulgent blather. I hate myself again. The clarity of truth in my heart has burdened me with it's memory now that it has left me. It is worse to lose your sight rather than be born blind. I'm infected with a foulness that I thought I would never have to know with Jesus.

Maybe this is exactly how it is supposed to be. Maybe this is exactly what every person who has ever loved God goes through. Maybe I'm just going through the typical experience and I think that I'm special so no one else could possibly understand. I just don't know. How can I?

At this point you probably are getting the theme. My own mind is treacherous. My thoughts are untrustworthy. The only thing that I know is that I want good. I know the difference between good and evil. I know the difference between life and death. The dilemma is that there is no way of telling what thoughts that would guide me are motivated by. My pride, self-destructive ego or the Life that is within me.

Ah. It seems clear now. Faith is suicidal but only if you value the approval of man. To believe in something that you can't control or understand is to betray the fallen human instinct and also betray anyone who still abides by it. I must deny my allegiance to the Fall. I see that my mistake has been believing that blessings of a life of faith would cancel out the cost of that faith.

I will believe. My only option at this point is to devote my mind to the Bible. It is clear that my mind of it's own persuasion will lead me toward a death that I've been pardoned of. To filter faith through my intellect and trying fit faith into my intellect is trying to fit the ocean in a swimming pool. It is also like using mud to wash your hands. I cannot get clean using the dirty faculties I have. It is clear: I must abandon my reliance on my thought and my experiential understanding and submit my mind to the thoughts of God. I am hopelessly lost guided by intelligence. It's time to pray.

Father,

So. You pointed the way. I will submit my mind to your word, the Bible. I will let it transform my mind with out reservation. I will accept your truth without trying to control it or twist it to my will. I offer my mind to you. I pray that you give me the strength to stop trying to think my way out of obedience. I pray that you guide me as I relinquish navigational control of my life to you. I pray that you free me of the bondage I have submitted to under my intelligence. I want my thought to glorify you and reflect your truth. I pray that I can use my mind as a tool and sacrifice to you, rather than a hindrance. I pray to stop trying to work my way to you by understanding. I pray that I have the humility to love you in all your mystery and I pray to be consumed utterly by the unfathomed depths of your nature. I pray to accept you as a child, and lay aside my prideful attempts to master you with postulation. Allow me to enter your court as a servant, an unworthy sinner.

Jesus, sweet Jesus. I want you. I want to fall deeply in love with you. Drive the sin from my heart so you can reside in me more fully. Cleanse your temple, make me a pleasing sacrifice to you. Please let me accept your grace. I just want to be completely absorbed in You. I can't live another day with this sin. The things I do are so pitiful. They could never fill the need I have, yet I submit to them daily. It's tragic. I need your love. I need your grace. Create something from nothing within me. Grace does dwell in me. I pray that it flourishes without ceasing. I pray that I be consumed by it for the rest of my life. I want you. Hear me! I want you!

I'm broken yet again, and I need you. Please be here. I accept, I believe, I submit. I don't know anything outside of your word. Your truth is the place that I will build. I will make my home in your words. That's it. I surrender again. Here we go.

Now

2008-11-01T12:31:00.000-07:00

God,

I have some questions for you. First off, what is it that I can know? What can say with confidence? Anything? Anything at all?

My mind is scattered like a coast town after a hurricane. All the innards of life strewn about in disarray. The secrets that lie hidden in the houses now are flung across park benches and street signs. With it all laid out in front of me in violent chaos, I'm simply overwhelmed by the incomprehensible weight of it all. Questions that torment me have no beginning nor an end.

Where do I even start?

Faith.

The work is believing. The battle is knowing what you cannot know. Am I wrong? God?

If this is true, then it seems the protective veil between faith and delusion has been torn down. There is no defense for true faith. To truly believe in you, it seems I will have to accept that I will look and act absolutely insane. The Christianity I've known has been a interloped with the standard of mistrust that lies embedded with the flesh. It has been a mix breed of self reliance and true faith. God I want to cast myself onto you. I want to abandon my flesh. So much of human knowledge, my own knowledge, is tainted by the desires of my charred heart. I want to transcend past the need to have evidence and dive into you without reservation.

I see that I have asked for this so many times, and covered my eyes when the opportunity to seize it arrived. The cost is so great, Lord. I haven't got the courage, but I know what is to be gained, and I know that it is all that is to be desired. Give me the strength to purchase the pearl of great value. I have wrote the check so many times, only to tear it up. I want to cash it. I want to trade it all for what I know is waiting in You.

God. Father. Daddy. I'm a baby. Compared to you I don't scarcely exist. I don't know what to ask for. Trying to tell you what I need would be a farce. I'm at your feet begging for whatever your will is. I'm a beggar, saturated by my sins, entirely unworthy and despicable. Jesus, for you to consider my plea is grace immeasurable. To know that I have even been heard by You is more than I could ask, yet in my insolent ignorance I will dare even more. Save me. Transform my mind to reflect the truth of your reality. Wash away the infectious sin that crusts over my eyes, so I can gaze upon the Truth.

You won me.

You own me.

My now is yours.

Flat

2008-10-25T21:23:00.000-07:00

The end of the honeymoon has arrived.

I put all I had into the Christian walk. Every hope and dream. I longed so much to be close to God. I longed to do what is right. I saw the light. It was so beautiful that it consumed me. Now I have fallen from grace. My hearts desire has been crushed.

I'm backsliding as you would say in Christianese. It started with my counselor quitting. He broke my heart, but I thought,"It will be okay. I have God. He will show that He is enough. No sweat." Then I started fighting with all the friends that I have made over the last six months. The fights have gotten nastier every week, and end with more finality every time. The people that once trusted me have started looking at me like a burden. They try to give me advice, but it's like throwing pennies at a tank. I can never extract the love from them that I need. They know how much I need. They can tell by my blackhole presence threatening to consume them if they let me have my way, so they parry with the advice and empty words.

The people that once respected me, even looked up to me, now see only a helpless child. I've exposed myself as a fraud. I've exposed myself as a fraud to me. Have I really done enough? Did I try to hard on my own strength? The impossible nature of this walk has brought right to the edge of myself. It's impossible to ignore the feeling of betrayal here. I thought that it was understood that I couldn't keep myself out of trouble and you would take care of it. Where are you now? Why did you let me come to this place? Is there some divine purpose in you letting my treacherous soul run out of control? I know all the agony that this sin that grows in me now will bring, and has already brought. It's no secret. I know better. I cringe every step of the way. BUT I CAN'T STOP. Where are you? I can't do this.

The place I've come to is desolate. In my very soul the desire for blood is raging. I don't care who's it is. Could be a hapless aquaintence that stumbles unfortunately on my plight, but preferable it will be my own. The biggest tragedy of me is that I am the purveyor of destruction in my own life. I don't know how I so quickly descended to this place of hopelessness; was it really so sudden or have I been careering toward this path all along under the delusion that I was pursuing God. The only sliver of light in this cavern is the battered voice that calls to God aimlessly. You couldn't call it hope, but instinct, or corneredness. The monster that dwells in me in perching proudly over my soul. I'm overthrown, heartbroken and alone.

I can't fight myself. I'm entirely confused and confounded. The million words and meanings swirl around me like a hurricane, nothing slowing enough to identify it. I thought I held something. It was good and I sold myself to it. Now I feel it was a false deal, and I haven't a soul left to give to anything else. Like a jilted lover I wait outside my love's door with no where to go.

I've gotten drunk with the intent to bury the pain of my unloving soul. I've tried to bury it in sex. I've tried to bury it in romance. I've tried to bury it with drugs. This is that last two weeks of life. God. I needed you. I couldn't hold to you. I wanted to do your will. I failed. How on earth can I even dare another try? I've got no more to give. I feel dead inside.

I give up.

No Escape

2008-10-20T15:58:00.000-07:00

What does your servant say to you, the infinite, the self existing God?

Oh, Jesus. You are so amazing. I've been so unfaithful and unworthy, yet there you are picking me up out of the dirt again, washing my wounds, healing me. I've been a fool sweet Savior, I've fought you every step of the way, but you have gently guided me through the dangerous world and my dangerous mind to a deeper safety in you.

I've used up every excuse in the book and now I stand faced with your goodness and your call. I admit defeat. Checkmate. I submit to your will. I vow obedience and loyalty to your glory at all cost. Lord, please give me the desire and faith to carry out my promise to you. I don't want to be the worker who says, "Yes", and does not go. Make me faithful, as I am yet rebellious in this life. I give you my thoughts that they would be inspired of you. I give you my heart that I may fall deeply in love with you. I give you my soul to only know you.

The world is huge and sinister. I'm a helpless child in a lion's den, and I will obey your every command as I have no other option for survival. Every second terrifies me and the pitfalls are beyond my reckoning. Please show me that you are the only one to be feared and that this world is yours. Consume me. I want to die to this world and to myself, that I may be only yours.
Destroy me that I may know all I have is you. Crush every idol in my heart without reservation. Claim me as your property, because I long to be yorus.

Create in me a clean heart, Oh God,
And renew a right spirit within me.

Cast me not away from thy presence, Oh Lord,
And take not thy Holy Spirit from me.
Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation,
And renew a right spirit within me.

Third Movement

2008-10-11T18:57:00.001-07:00

Epiphany: I've taken to this emotional revolution like a crusader. Control!

It has been really exciting to really take stock in heartache. I've found the strength in Christ to care about myself enough to give grievance to the things that happen to me. In my fervor I've gone and taken control of this stuff. I am carrying all this intense weight around on my shoulders. Heavy stuff, it is.

Tonight I release my troubles to Jesus.

1.)My counselor quit, leaving me in an abandonment whirlpool.
2.)In the wake of that, my friends have left me to flounder with the pain.
3.)I've been unable to air out the pain, for the fact that I've been focused on it, and the attempt.
4.)I don't feel love for people anymore.
5.)I slept with a girl last weekend whom I had just met, after getting drunk and stoned.
6.)Guilt.
7.)A close friend has distanced herself from me and condemned my choices.
8.)I'm still unable to grieve my bad relationship with my Dad.
9.)I'm gaining weight.
10.)I don't know how to pay all my bills and they keep piling up out of nowhere.
11.)I'm at a loss for what I'm suppose to do with myself.
12.)I'm bored.
13.)I feel like I'm not growing.
14.)I've hurt so many people, and I feel unable to be honest with my brokeness
15.)I'm scared that if I don't try hard enough I'll not be good enough.
16.)I afraid that I'm not doing something right because things are so crazy.

That about does it. I feel better already. phew.

They are yours, Jesus. I am yours. My heart feels alive again.

Nowhere else to run

2008-10-11T16:46:00.000-07:00

I'm addicted to the internet.

I'm addicted to the vague hope that I might connect with another human soul from the safety of my keyboard. I'm no better than a gambler hoping that the next pull will let him quit. I'll peruse all the blogs I follow hoping that someone wrote something I can relate to. If I'm really lucky I'll even get a shout out or subtle nod. When I've exhausted all the personal connections and checked my gmail ten times, I'll take the consolation prize of web comics. In the lives of characters existing in little Utopian rectangles I find solace. They deal with their "problems" by consulting their quirky but perfectly understanding friends. If only I had some two-dimensional friends that always understood me even though they had a weird fetish or OCD. When I've squeezed all the emotion out of the panels of my web comics, I move on to Post Secret. Cathartic at best, wryly self-pitying at worst. This is always a nice end piece (although never really satisfying) with all the pathetic desperation. I relate so well, yet despise the self-loathing of each sad attempt to be known. I rue the creeping loss of the last post. Alone again, as if I ever wasn't.

If I don't pry myself off the vestiges of humanity scattered across the internet I typically end up wandering toward YouTube then darker arenas of "intimacy". The wrong trail always leads to the wrong quarry. Yet, I take chase almost daily.

After the binge comes the purge. Blogging. I'll chase my sin as far as I can then in sullen defeat take up my whip of words. I come to expulse all my vanity. In most cases it is much more veiled than today. Here is the truth.

I am utterly lonely. My counselor left me. He was the one person I was sure knew me. I could enter the sanctuary of his office with complete security that he would accept me in my childish folly. I was safe there. I could be me. I know that he had to leave and it was an inevitable circumstance but I can not help but feel abandoned. Now, facing the world at large, hoping to find a new safe haven, I'm overwhelmed. I've awakened enough to know how heavy my soul is. I want to be known. I want someone to behold my soul. I know what a huge request that is. I long to be known so badly that I feel I may die if I don't find relief soon. Go ahead. Laugh. Say I'm just creating drama for myself to wallow in. God, knows I mock myself enough, what's one more person? But, no. I refuse to be numb. I won't must leave the cave.

This is my sad attempt to be known, I know. I pray for the courage take my heart out of the box. I pray to surrender the outcome to God. I pray to stop trying to control the world around me and let myself be who I am. I pray that I find my outlet in Jesus. I am surrendered to the simplicity of it. I will wait here and hope that God delivers me or die waiting. I know this isn't a balanced, safe, advisable path. I'm crazy, and I expect that every single person who reads this will disagree with me. If I'm wrong I will be wrong. If that happens to be the case at least I can say I put it all on the line. My friends have looked at the life I'm leading and they see someone who is letting everything go, everything fall apart. Maybe I am, but I trust in God, barely. I will hang on to Him alone, no matter how insane that looks to everyone around me. I won't limit God to live a socially pleasing life.

Yes, I do love to make a scene and I do strive to be different. You pegged me. That is how God made me, and if He wants me to stop being this way then He will change my heart. Til then I'll be the attention-whore, bleeding heart lunatic that I am. Thank you, Goodnight.

How Long?

2008-10-11T13:56:00.000-07:00

My output does not match my input. I have so many thoughts that feel like they may hold the keys to existence. The information flowing into my mind is all overwhelming. There is so much. I want so badly this thing that has no name. Perhaps it is God. I have cried out with every fiber of my being and to know lasting avail. Staying faithful is like holding your breath it seems. The necessary implication is that taking a breath is failing. That's how it feels. I keep my eyes on God as long as I can though it feels like it will kill me, and when finally I lose my nerve I tear away and ironically I crash. I want so badly. I simply want. Faith dictates that I want God. I turn to Him and I often feel let down. The deeper my understanding of life gets the heavier my need to express, be known and love becomes. The more you learn the more you need. The more you know the more you hurt.

God,

Here I am yet again. Things are unclear. The information overwhelms me. The fact of life, the very fact of my being paralyzes me. I feel like trying to trust you has left me dry. I feel as though you showed me life abundantly and I gave in to you without reservation. Now I feel like I committed to something horribly difficult. I thought I could count on you for peace, for joy, for all of that. I thought that was enough to get through whatever the world would throw at me. I thought that was enough to do your will. Now I'm failing at your will. I can scarely call out your name, and when I do it's out of resentful rage. Everyone at every turn is telling me that I'm insane and you are silent. From every angle I'm being told that I am not enough, and I can't change. I don't know where to turn. Where are you?

I'm writing this prayer to vent at you God. I know that you have given me the very life to understand pain. I'm using what you've given me to complain. I'm using what you've given me to hate what you've given me. How can I trust? I'm unable. I'm unable to love, to live. I'm so broken, and I can't understand what you could possibly want me to learn or what good could come from this darkness that you've let me into. I can't follow you faithfully. I know that I can't, so why won't you help me? I don't know what to do. I'm so lost. Again. I've done my best for you. It's not good enough for anybody else. My friends all judge me. They tell me I'm a mess, a loser, a black hole, a pathetic slacker, a selfish callous user. I am these things. God, show me why I'm doing this Christian thing. Show me again why it's better to follow you. I'm so weak and this is so hard. I can't do anything perfect, I can't "go and sin no more". How can I tell people to come to you, when I don't even see what good comes of it. "Hey everybody! Come suffer with me! It's great. You can feel lonely, rejected, worthless, and ruined. Who's in?"

What am I suppose to do when your word doesn't enter my heart? What am I suppose to do when I can't find any truth in your word? I read and long so hard for something, and I can't get it. Reading my Bible feels so trite and empty. Where are you?

Where are you? Where is the peace, and fulfillment? I can't do this. I am unfaithful. I have been broken, my spirit. I can't say, "God is good." I want to and I'm scared of not. But how can I say that when nothing around me show this truth. Not even in my heart. I feel dead.

Here is my heart: I don't have much faith left. Life is torturous. I feel like a failure. I feel like I can't even surrender. I can't let go. The only hope I have is you, if you could even call it hope. I'm smashed on the rocks and haven't got anything left. I have no where to turn but you. Everyone has failed me and I have failed them.

Here I am. Where are you?

Art

2008-10-07T15:50:00.000-07:00

errrrrrrrk!

I could explode. The inadequacy of my words, my tone, my face, my heart. There is a raging torrent inside me and it is gathering pressure. If my emotional health is an engine, then I am firing on too few cylinders. How does one reconcile functionality and honesty? I lack the wisdom, nay, the capacity to possess the required information to make moral decisions.

A strange trend is developing in my experience. Lately I've found gems of wisdom and truth hidden right under my nose. The Bible is the most obvious of these gems. It's been in ludicrous proximity to me literally my whole life. Another less powerful, but still enjoyable is the Self-Titled Jars of Clay album. My aunt bought it for me in 1995 on a cassette tape. A couple weeks ago I was longing for something comfortable to have a break down to, I put it on my stereo. I heard the lyrics for the first time in the notes I'd heard hundreds of time before. The pain, the beauty and the devotion resonated at long last in my soul.

Things that I have dismissed in my arrogant ignorance have become so valuable with the glorious advent of humility. My greatest capacity for wisdom, creativity, and love come with humility. Oh, Jesus, break me further and further into nothing so that you can be glorified through me. Glorify your servant that you may be exalted.

"Worlds Apart"

I am the only one to blame for this
Somehow it all ends up the same
Soaring on the wings of selfish pride
I flew too high and like Icarus I collide
With a world I try so hard to leave behind
To rid myself of all but love
to give and die

To turn away and not become
Another nail to pierce the skin of one who loves
more deeply than the oceans,
more abundant than the tears
Of a world embracing every heartache

Can I be the one to sacrifice
Or grip the spear and watch the blood and water flow

To love you - take my world apart
To need you - I am on my knees
To love you - take my world apart
To need you - broken on my knees

All said and done I stand alone
Amongst remains of a life I should not own
It takes all I am to believe
In the mercy that covers me

Did you really have to die for me?
All I am for all you are
Because what I need and what I believe are worlds apart

I look beyond the empty cross
forgetting what my life has cost
and wipe away the crimson stains
and dull the nails that still remain
More and more I need you now,
I owe you more each passing hour
the battle between grace and pride
I gave up not so long ago
So steal my heart and take the pain
and wash the feet and cleanse my pride
take the selfish, take the weak,
and all the things I cannot hide
take the beauty, take my tears
the sin-soaked heart and make it yours
take my world all apart
take it now, take it now
and serve the ones that I despise
speak the words I can't deny
watch the world I used to love
fall to dust and thrown away
I look beyond the empty cross
forgetting what my life has cost
so wipe away the crimson stains
and dull the nails that still remain
so steal my heart and take the pain
take the selfish, take the weak
and all the things I cannot hide
take the beauty, take my tears
take my world apart, take my world apart
I pray, I pray, I pray
take my world apart

Phrase

2008-10-02T14:54:00.000-07:00

Today I considered yet another phrase to plaster on my mirror. I'm always tempted to place my latest thought up there in distilled form, hoping that it will anchor me to the truth that seems to work today. The problem is that my mind and my heart do not often align. The words that I cling to in a desperation for control quickly become trite. Thus, I have not yet come to rest on adequate string of words. Today's idea was "You are going to die, perhaps today."

I've run the gamut of idea that will keep me stabilized, but my end resolution has been to keep my eyes on God instead of a memorable tidbit of wisdom.

Case in point: I had been inundated with Bible and biblical truth for the first 18 years of life and it for what it was worth it didn't keep me close to God. Most of it went in one ear and out the other. Even now I will read my Bible sometimes and have no clue what God is trying to say to me. My very comprehension is by the grace of God. It seems clear that every lucid moment is directly of God. I can't control my ability to think clearly, so I have to to trust. I'll claw for control down the last thought of my dying day. But I have been infected by the truth that God is good. The most authentic experiences I have had can be chalked up to Him. I can't stray from Him without knowing that I'm inevitably going to hurt myself in doing so. That truth grows in me like a virus unchecked. I've succumbed to it.

God,

I pray that you seal my heart. I pray that you seal my mind. Protect from the siren's song that is intellectualism. My darkened heart seduces my mind and coerces me to twist truth and create a false reality. I pray that you consume my heart and mind, that I will irrevocably rely on you. Break me down so far that I can do nothing but cry out to you in utter acceptance of your rule in my life. I'm yours but you know my how I am. It overwhelms me to even glance down the hall of my cavernous heart. I want to seek you in every moment of my existence. I want to know what it is like for the things of earth to grow strangely dim. Compel me, seal me, overwhelm me me. I know longer wish to have the choice. I'd give up my free will to know that I would never stray from you. I suppose you have a reason for all of this, and I will just accept that, but you know how hard it is for me. It makes no sense at all, but some how in the midst of all this pain I'm thriving and feeling more life in these veins than I have in years. I don't understand, Father. I trust you. You've proven yourself to me, and the fact that you would acknowledge me at all is proof enough of your goodness.

I'm a living sacrifice. I bring you this restless soul full of rebellion. I betray myself to you. Take me over. You're all that matters, and I commit my heart to you that I might live to reflect the truth.

I love you.

Belltown

2008-09-30T15:19:00.000-07:00

It's autumn now. The acorns that fall on the sidewalk are ripe enough to crack when I step on them. Trees are still green but they are beginning to hint at the coming undress with a tinge of blush in their leafy complexions. The Belltown air is beginning carry a clarity, like the cool of the first bite into a crisp apple. My heart echoes the ambivalence of the warm street tired from the hot sun, anticipating the approach of the steel gray sky.

The bus is a gallery of Belltown life. Young and old, rich and poor tensely partake in their common need for movement. The bag ladies with their found treasures of tragedy, the boys hiding inside business suits with their conference call cacophony, the dilapidated mother with peek-a-booing cub in tow, they all come and sit with reverent silence. In the Metro we ride intimately crammed feigning perfect solitude. Loneliness is the art form on display, silence the paint, fear the canvas.

Friday and Saturday night are marked with the arrival of a migratory flock of clubbers, hipsters, lady killers and gold diggers. They are met by the local army of call girls and dealers. The street comes alive with longing. All seeking the same conquest, perhaps believing they've found El Dorado. Oh, shining Belltown. The night expends it's prize the seekers slowly begin their homeward journey. As the darkest hours of night come the true beast rises from the ashes of the enticing creature that has withered. It's cries resonate through the alleyways, the business men of the night threaten, the prostitutes scream, the addict wails. From my apartment the sound muffled comes like a gurgle from the belly of the beast.

The morning always comes. The sun leaks through the blinds and and promise leaks into my soul. A "good morning" to God. Bones creak across hardwood. I wash away the unnamed terror of the darkness with a Name. The morning always comes.

Ignition

2008-09-29T15:56:00.000-07:00

Trouble ahead, trouble behind.

Life is to be lived. Feelings are to be felt.

What becomes most agonizing for me in any given bad situation is not the painful feelings but the suppression of them. When I get violated and refuse to feel violated, I'm not living. When I get I hurt someone and I don't feel guilty, I'm not living. When I get a compliment and I don't beam, I'm not living.

Life is the experience and the reaction to it in our hearts. Without Christ I'd have been too afraid to cry when I'm sad, or laugh when I'm happy, or scream when I'm frustrated. I would never have believed that another could care enough about me to "impose the burden of myself". Now I know that Christ cares about my aches and elation, and I'm not ashamed of them. I won't be told to settle down and contain myself. I've got life abundant, in all flavors.

What I've discovered is that I can enjoy life without being happy. It is the authentic experience of what happens around, the relevance of that experience as God masterpiece, that is joy. As we are created in the image of God, we have consciousness, we have the gift of meaning. We possess something that is greater than the sum of the physical form. Consciousness. The spark of life. And thus, it is an act of worship to pursue the authentic reality of that consciousness as it happens, as the sovereign God has ordained it to happen. To reply with an appreciation for every sensation with the knowledge that is part of this gift called consciousness.

I've been fixated on the "happy" corner of existence. I drew my own lines about how I should experience life, and those lines were inevitably insufficient. When my heart crossed out of those boundaries, resentment came barreling down the path with a vengeance. Far be it from me to see that I was insulting God for giving me eyes to see the world, be it scary; for giving me a heart to feel, be it painful. So I say, relevance is the meaning of being. The real discomfort comes from me trying to make a real experience irrelevant. When unfortunate things happen trying to force a different reaction is agony, like suffocating your soul. To cry when you get hurt feels right. It is giving relevance to the human experience.

I'm going to be a different man. This changes everything.

Fake Fruit

2008-09-27T15:04:00.000-07:00

My life consist of epiphanies and the space between them.

What does a Christian do differently than an unbeliever? You wouldn't have been able to tell by looking at me recently. The life I've been leading has slid back into a mode of self-punishment. What being a Christian means is that we're no longer blind to what sin is, no longer subject to the pervading guilt of it and free to live life to the fullest. The mindset of needing to pay a debt or earn my way to a closer walk with God had crept back into my frame.

I've lived like a prisoner the last few months, subconsciously taking salvation into my own hands. The foolishness of this can best be understood by thinking of me like a prisoner who has been pardoned and continues to live in his cell even though the door has been opened. The jailer is me, now.

I haven't been taking care of myself. I've stopped working out, I've stopped pursuing my passions, I've stopped eating healthy. The list goes on. Grace has eluded me. I thought I should stop doing everything that isn't perfect and "wait for righteousness". Not to say this isn't the case in some areas of my life, but I mistook this verse to mean "sit on your hands and wait for God to move you." Taken to the absolute meaning, I could start saying that I should stop brushing my teeth because I'm doing it for selfish, vain reasons. Oh I've been a fool, yet again.

The verse says "Let yourself be transformed by the renewing of your mind" I may not completely quit trying to perform my own surgery forever, but I will quit today. I'll let the Surgeon handle it today, and I'll just love Him for it.

I went to a parenting conference a couple weeks ago and the speaker told an amazing analogy about righteousness. The speaker, Ted Tripp, took it from somebody else and I took it from him, so if you're really concerned giving credit to the right person, good luck. Anyway, the story is of an apple tree that consistently grows bad apples. The man who owns the tree tries everything to help the tree grow good apples. Fertilizer, more water, aeration, everything you could think of. Finally in a desperate attempt to have a tree that had good fruit on it, he picked all the rotten apples off the tree and tied fresh, good apples to the tree. His wife comes to see the tree and is floored by the ridiculous superficiality of the work her husband has done.

The point of the story is that the heart is the tree the and what comes from the tree is determined by the quality of the heart. By forcing myself to do "good" is like tying fruit onto my tree. I've been doing so for a while now. The righteousness must come from with in. Yes, I could go out and do good, but it is superficial and ultimately more work than it is worth. All recipients of such "good" will be painfully aware of the phoniness. I will wait for Jesus to change my heart. In the meantime I'll stop wasting my time tying phony fruit to my branches and just live the life Christ has given me.

Dance

2008-09-24T15:04:00.001-07:00

If the world is a stage I'm a costume designer.

The infinite labyrinth of my thought has consumed me again and I need rescue. I'm a simple man, if you could call me a man at all. Yet I engage the darkness and confusion time and time again. The image I see is David standing in Saul's armor. The attempt to be secure has encumbered me with more weight than I can carry. And I'm paralyzed again. My freedom is naked.

My counselor asked where I was this week. I'm hiding. That's where. I'm hiding behind all this apologetic thought. The shitty thing is that in turning my eyes to defense I've lost sight of God, and thus lost all the joy and benefit of the thing that I'm defending. Caleb asked who I was trying to convince. Yep, it's me. I can't remember what happened first defense or insecurity.

The idea behind "Surprised by Joy" is just now settling although I finished the book two weeks ago. Lewis said you cannot contemplate an experience and enjoy it simultaneously. The concept was easy enough but the implications are still creeping like roots into my life. One of those implications is that I can't be joyful in Christ while worrying about being joyful in Christ. Nor can I enjoy Christ while expending my thought on less than His glory.

Reading over the last few weeks of posts the trend of trying to formulate my approach to God emerges. All the plans in the world will never build a tower. I've got to move. I've got to worship through life, engage in Christ through life, not in spite of it.

In my hopelessness I've worked my way into an esoteric corner of "surrender". It was really fear driven paralysis.

I've got so many thoughts that feel like they need resolution, but I think they can wait their turn. I've got things to do.

Show's Over, Folks...

2008-09-23T15:14:00.000-07:00

I'm my own audience because I'm so scared no one will take me seriously. Sometimes I feel like a one man vaudeville show. I'm a broken record, too. No new material. Same poodle on a tricycle shtick as always. Woe is me.

Not today. I'm settling into a new groove. Before I knew Christ I had two lenses to look at myself through. I could tell myself that I was alright and deny my shame, and go on a self-righteous war path of persecution. The second option was to be honest with myself and dive into the deep pool of self loathing, in go war against myself. This usually came to head with suicide attempts. Today the third option is evident to me. I can take an honest look in the mirror and stand taller than I ever did in my self-righteous haze, because I am forgiven, and indeed, a new life grows up through the wreckage I see in my soul. I plead guilty and walk free.

I pray that the days of crying to the imaginary emptiness are gone. God's listening. I pray that I never leave this freedom found in honesty. God, hear me now, I'm scared of losing what you have given me, and for that fear I'm prone to flee to the things that have brought me sickly comfort in the past. I wish I could paint myself into your corner, but I fear that the beginning and end of this security lie in your hands. I pray for enough to feel secure and not stray. That's all I ask.

Fool

2008-09-22T17:37:00.000-07:00

Time for another bleeding heart confession. Here goes.

Sometime this week a big realization fell into place. It was the answer to an presumed innocence and resulting distance from God. I discovered the truth of resentment and it's implications. I formerly thought resentment was simply holding a grudge. I have a feeling it is more complex.

I can recall an incident in my childhood that has been something of a mystery to me until recently. My mom would tell me that it was time for bed and offer me a drink of water. I would refuse it and go bed. I would wander out of my room shortly thereafter and request more water. She would, of course, say, "No, I offered you some earlier. Go back to bed." Then all hell would break lose. I would cry the cry of a martyr. I basked in the pain of "helplessness". I would eventually break my parents by virtue of my self-induced martyr's high. They would offer me water at last and I would deny it. Victory wasn't what I wanted. At least not in the sense of dominating the strongest force in my life. I wanted the feeling of being justified. I wanted to play the victim. This scenario was not uncommon.

Up till last week I thought I was unique. This phenomena was my little freak show and I was the star. 12-step speaks much about resentment, and most strikingly, that it is just as powerful as lust, alcohol, drugs, etc. "Hmm, I don't hate many people...I guess I don't have a problem with that." With my definition of resentment falling only on people and situations that I felt justified in harboring contempt my blinders were perfectly in place. Almost.

Remembering back to the intense sensation of longing and drive behind the seemingly senseless drama of the water, I questioned what was to be gained there and then it all clicked. I had been placing myself in situations where I could feel justified in abusing people and myself since I was old enough to talk. I've been a self-destructive martyr since day one. My mom was not wrong when she said I should have been a lawyer.

Powerless is what I am over this. This was my first addiction. It is hardwired into me. Victimizing myself, setting myself up to be abused in increasingly sophisticated ways has been my trajectory of life. My most elaborate facade has been against God. I have done things that He has told me not to do and then I blame Him for the consequences. Then I sin some more, because I've convinced myself that God has abandoned me. I "deserve" to, why bother trying not to? So it has been.

My latest escapade of resentment has just ended. I have plunged into self pity again with the circumstances that have "befallen" me. I have no money and I have stopped trying to do anything for myself. I've been telling everyone along the way that God will provide and take care of me. What I left out was "in spite of my lack of cooperation". I've set myself up again.

I do believe God will take care of me and He has, but I've rationalized my inaction under the guise of "surrender". My attraction to surrender has not been the promise of God taking care of me, but the goldmine of opportunity to play the victim when things don't go my way.

Resentment is a drug and I am an addict. God, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I was so ignorant of your love and tried to excuse myself from your mercy. I'm sorry I used my insolence to defame your glorious name. I truly am a wretch of a man, and I need you more than I could express if I fill the universe with books about my guilt. I accept your grace. Change this perpetually treacherous heart. The door is open, come inside.

I hate smart people.

2008-09-18T16:09:00.001-07:00

Purge. I want to spew my insecurities onto the internet as if the people I'm scared of will read them and then see that they are just as scared as me and then let there guard down. I feel naked. I feel stupid.

I want desperately to be artistic and create something that people will relate to. I want it so badly that I'm willing to pour myself out on the pavement. I fear that I will open my soul and people will see what an artless barbarian I am and I will be destroyed.

I have this nagging feeling that my desire is hopeless and that I should just surrender to God. I'm scared that the people around that I'm trying to impress will think that is a horribly ignorant thing to do. I can just hear the thoughts:"He's so weak and pathetic. He just can't hack it in life and he runs back to his simpleton faith every time things get real.

I can't stand it. The intellectual community that I have idolized is everywhere. I hate that they make me feel like a dullard with my simplicity and blind-eye philosophy. I want to be free of the perceived judgment of the greats.

I feel so lowly with what I've got to give. I feel like a beggar who thought he got invited to a high society party and shows up with all the excitement of a child to find that he was never really invited.

The best part is that this is all probably in my head, because nobody is even paying attention.

How do I pour my passion into something without endangering my stability? How do I pour my passion into something without putting my self worth on the chopping block? So, I digress. Back to where I started with my simpleton creed. God, I give up. I'm cowardly and self defeating. I'm too scared. I'm just a little boy with huge dreams. The world seems like a monster waiting to swallow me whole if I crack my door open an inch. Ugh. I give up again.

Spiraling Up

2008-09-16T13:20:00.000-07:00

Welcome to a place were you can lay down all of your burdens. You can lay down all of your fears. You can be free like a child. You can be completely at peace now.

What? How?

Surrender, duh. But I got lost somewhere along the way the last few months. I took "surrender" and made it mean "give up things as I think of them" instead of just "give up". I started making the list for my moral inventory and it became a laundry list of things that I would surrender. I took the terms of the surrender into my hands and took control back. It would be like Japan saying to the United States after WWII, "We surrender! but we'll make a list of things that we want to surrender and let you in as we see fit." Not much of a surrender.

What I've realized as I reached the end of myself last weekend was that I need to surrender my attempts to surrender. Yep, true to form, I cannot do anything good on my own, including surrender. So, my prayer is now revised. This is looking like what could be the foundation of my relationship with God, behold:

God,

I pray that you will give me submission in all things. I am willing because I have seen enough of you to know that are a good God. I believe that will take care of me and that I will be best off in your will. Therefore I desire to surrender to it, but I have seen that I'm powerless to do so despite my best efforts. I need you in all ways and wish to rest in your love. I believe, help my unbelief.

I've been praying this prayer for the last two days and so far, so good. I feel all the peace that I felt in the beginning. Every time I feel myself starting to feel anxious or unsure I pray that God gives me submission of my fear. Every time I feel powerless or insecure I admit my powerlessness and pray for submission to God's truth. It seems too bold to say that peace and contentment could be this simple but the Bible does say to come before God like a child. In complex theological discourse I see only attempts to control God, control the behavior of God and control our own lives. I'm not saying that theology is bad, but in comparison with the practical truth of surrender to God theology seems kind of elementary and petty. Something like train-wheels for faith. I think I will leave this topic because I can't say much more without being flagrantly offensive. The important thing is that the concerns of life are now out of my hands.

In receiving a surrendered heart, all the commands of God become compulsive. They are like ripples in a pond vibrating out from the disturbance that is God's power in my life. I don't fret about how to be a better Christian. It takes faith to believe that God will fulfill these things in me without effort on my part. This becomes a little easier to live with when you think that the One who engineered the very mind that ponders Him is in control. He is greater than the sum of all the energy contained in the universe and His love for me is greater than the sum of all the love that has poured from lovers over human history. He loves me so much that He relinquished all the control of the universe to die at my hands. For me. All these thoughts make what ever I little push I could give seem pretty laughable.

I believed that God was pursing me, but I was more concerned with my pursuit of Him. I made the mistake of believing that I needed to. God wanted me and He came for me. He won me. I love Him now. And I believe that all that infinite power is continuing to pursue me. Infinite Love is loving me right now. It's hard to worry about whether I am giving enough money at church, or if I'm loving my neighbors enough when I think about who God is. His will will be done, and it is good.

Quit Trying to Quit?

2008-09-14T15:37:00.001-07:00

I haven't got much to say today. I'm praying for surrender of all things in my life. The Fourth Step inventory has really got me over the barrel. I'm painfully aware of how much I fail and how powerless I really am over everything. I haven't a vague idea of what "right" is and I know how far from it I usually end up. Even the things I do right I manipulate myself into by guilt or back breaking force of will. I get that I'm weak. I get that my attempt of doing good for myself is a black hole of necessity.

So, I lay the reigns in God's hands again. I have thought that praying for the right thing could yield me some results but now I'm certain that I don't even know what I need, and if I did I would foul it up. Now this may sound like I'm beating myself up, but I'm not. I don't feel sorry for myself right now. I'm saying this as an objective fact. The sum of my experiences lead me to believe without a doubt that my attempts at good are futile. Simple and true. I discovered God's strength and love in the confined arena of lust. I thought that I could distill that power and apply it to everything and I tried. I failed. In fact, in trying to do so I proceeded to fall back into my old habit of acting out lust. I'm not sure why God let this happen to me, and maybe someday down the road I will be able to look back and say why. As for now, I just know that I can't surrender on my own. That's right. I can't even stop trying to do good for myself. So I pray that I can surrender. I pray for God's strength, and the courage to stop using my own.

Lost

2008-09-13T13:10:00.000-07:00

Submission is a bitch.

I'm so totally exhausted. I may not have said this in the past because I've been scared of what people would think of my "miracle" faith. Not today. I'm broke down and I'm wearing it like the clown suit it is.

I have story to tell today. I have been troubled by the impracticality of the paradox of God's sovereignty and free will. I have this slick little diatribe that arose from the period in my life when I was concerned with proving everything. It goes like this: It is true that we can not reconcile the characteristics of God in this finite mind, but this fact is assurance because it illustrates the infinite nature of God, His hugeness, if you will. And that is reason to worship Him, because He boggles our minds, He shows His worthiness in incomprehensible enormity yada, yada. This little chunk of cheeky philosophy does so little for me in application.

I ask God what to do with myself. I ask for advice when I don't know what to do. The other night I was invited to a friends house for dinner, but I didn't know what bus to take and it was getting late. I prayed to know what to do. I knew I needed to go see people because I was feeling really isolated and depressed. Of course, I didn't want to. Something curious I have noticed: My perception of God's will seems far too often to be not what seems right but whatever is contrary to what I want. I contradict myself. So I decide that I think God wants me to go.

So I go. I get on the bus and ride down to Beacon Hill. I feel good about things at this point. On the way down I start fantasizing about how things will go down at my friends'. I imagine that I will be courageous enough to let my guard down and lean on my friends to help carry my pain. In short, I start gearing up for encounter. I get off the bus at what I later learned was the wrong stop. Unsure of which direction exactly my friends' place is, I wander around a bit looking for the street. I fail to find any sign of there house, street or their neighborhood. I wander back toward the bus stop starting to feel really dejected. On the way back I pass a lit window in a warehouse with the words "Christian Church" or something like that on it. I walk closer and see that there is about ten black people in chairs listening to a man pray. The only words I remember him saying were,"...and God loves you no matter what, whether you like it or not!" I decided not to go in, and right after I did a little girl opened her eyes and waved at me. The whole scene spoke to my heart and a sobs started creeping up my throat. I snuck away back toward the bus stop. My frustration was building.

Back at the bus stop I succumbed to the loneliness of the moment and sobbed at my inability to be known. 45 minutes later the bus came and I for some reason continued to trudge on my mission even though it was now two hours past when I said I would be there and completely dark. I get off at the right stop find a bike path that I think goes toward their house. I walk down it for about a half a mile and realize that I have no idea where I am. This is the last straw. I sit down on the bike path and cry. I mumble through sobs,"Why?" I lay back on the path and stare into the sky. A man rides bike and asks me if I'm alright and I snap, "I'm fine."

I wander back the other direction still unable to let go of my plan to find the house. I follow the bike path past the bus stop the other direction and end up so lost that I finally give up and concede to just walking until I find a bus to get home. By now I felt like I was in other world. I had never been to the place I was walking. I was in an emotional whirlwind of pride and sorrow. As I wandered the scene changed into a view over a lit span bridge reaching out over the intersecting road below. There was a pagoda looking gazebo in the grass behind me. It felt like an empty scene out of Blade Runner. I wander up a hill and I come up on the Veteran's Hospital. The place looks like an insane asylum. It is lit from top to bottom and sits on top of a hill surrounded by skinny trees that filter the light reflected off the monolith.

Past the hospital was the destination of my journey. I came to a parking lot on the side of the hill and the view from there looked something like this:

I was still too prideful to allow myself to enjoy the adventure at hand. The smells that night were bizarre too. Each place I wandered had a smell about it that took me back to random places from my life. It was strange. I caught a bus across from the parking lot and rode home. When I got there I was confused and defeated. I thought I was pursuing something God wanted me to do. I ended the night by checking my email and seeing that 6 people had read this blog and prayed for me at random. I only got about half way through the first email and broke down again on the floor squeaking out sobs. This time there was distinct tinge of guilt to my self-pity.

I finally came to end of myself back at the place I started. The whole night God let me run to the end of myself to the see the beauty in surrender. I'll still complain after seeing that things are okay even though they are out of my hands. I still haven't settled down. I've got my agenda and it seems to me that I can't even see it until God let's me run my self ragged.

Something about the catharsis of the night landed me in a place of raw reality. On the bus ride home a man was sitting opposite me who looked like he was traveling. He had a mullet with one dreadlock, hiking boots and canvas bag. He incited the wanderlust in me. The heady drink of staring down reality with suicidal abandon had intoxicated me with the courage to pursue the thought. The tenets of societal norms and mandates of secular control have once again ensnared me. I'd thought maybe I was courageous or enlightened before, but evidently not. The need for control of life through possessions, relationships and security are felt like an snake that has outgrown his skin. So many things govern my life that are not God. I want to be free.

I'm not sure why God get all the credit for good and I get all the credit for the bad. I am a little man, and a confused one at that. I want to try and end this story with a nice little bow to tie it all together with some profound meaning behind it all. The only thing I've got for a bow right now is shoestring. I guess surrender today accepting that I don't know what the hell is going on.

Really

2008-09-10T16:28:00.000-07:00

I've been so wrapped up in thought that the reality that it pertains to may have passed me by. I feel like I've gather up so many theories that the state of my heart and the relationship between God and I has been neglected altogether. I feel like a man who fears losing his marriage and rather than talk to his wife, he goes to a counselor, buys every marriage book he get his hands on and isolates himself in a study trying to find out what is wrong. What good is all my thought and struggle without talking to God about it?

I'm going to pray.

God,

Hi, I feel like it's been so long since I talked you in earnest. I'm tempted to parrot off some nice things that will sound Christiany and faithful, but I would betray my heart. I've been arrogant and I've strayed. I've sneaked out the back door of my mind. My thoughts are stalling out right now, trying to protect me from acknowledging the truth of my ignorance. I pray you give strenghth to not disosociate right now. I want to be real with you. I know that I've tried to find ever way around surrender that I could conjure. I'm so sorry. It's who I am. I lie to myself better than I can lie to other people. Please let me see myself honestly. I have relied on my own understanding so much lately that at this point I feel effectively blind. I'm stumbling so hard. Turn on the lights in my brain, please!

A while back I felt really confident in You, I was trusting in You and I had faith that everything was surrendered to your sustainence. A fear has grown in me that I have to maintain that reality because I've commited to it so vocally to those around me. I've lost faith because my fear of everyone thinking that what I believed so wholly is just a sham. I'm so scared that people will think I've deluded myself and what I was running around saying was just in my head. I'm so sorry that I didn't trust you to keep me safe. You know that I still don't. I can't really relinquish control on my own. I don't have the courage to let go. Please Jesus. I tried my hand at life again. I really only decieved myself. I'm back at this juncture knowing that the life that I am in control of is an anxiety-ridden dirge. I know only that I need you, and I don't have the courage to turn over the reigns. I'm like a terrified back seat driver. I need so much. You know this. I don't. Show me how. I'm desperate to walk closer to you. I need you to show me how to do it. I surrender what I can. I pray you give me courage to give up more of me. Take all of me. I give up my fear of people. I'm ashamed that I've let them come between us. Please take my fear.

I'm yours Jesus. I'm giving up in spite of what people are going to think. I want what your joy more than I want people to think well of me. I'm a wreck, a coward, and a traitor. I don't care if the whole world knows. I only want you. I love you the best I can. Please make it more.

Further Up and Further In

2008-09-10T13:31:00.000-07:00

I've been noodling for awhile now on the connection between addiction, love, philosophy and God. I remember hearing once that compulsive gambling addicts actually get annoyed when they win. The curiosity of this phenomena worth looking into.

In addiction, ritual becomes a big part of the cycle. For the discussion's sake I would like you broaden your definition of addiction to anything that one does compulsively regardless of it's perceived negative effects; anything from smoking crack to folding socks. In my own experience, the actual pay off of the object in desire is always a let down. The preparation, the anticipation is the real joy. When I arrive at the terminal point of my pursuit I'm inevitably disappointed. In chronic pursuit of addictive pleasure the ritual develops in order to postpone the pay-off and prolong the anticipation and the buildup as long as possible. I think that there are two separate things that happen. The desire and the actual pleasure. What I just realized is that I've also liked the desire better than the actual pleasure. The "getting there" is better than the destination.

I've said earlier that I think desire for God is what we are after when set out to fill ourselves whether we know it or not. How does this fit into what I've just wrote? Well, the disappointment that occurs when we reach the terminal point of pursuit need not occur when we pursue God. The disappointment occurs, I think, because we are seeking the infinite, and all worldly solutions are finite. They end. God does not. If we seek God we can continue to desire Him forever, for we will never reach His end. The letdown never comes.

Thus far what I have said is speculation. It makes sense to me but it may be way off. I'm writing this primarily to hash out my thoughts against the possibility of another person reading them. I'm forcing myself to think at least rationally enough to be presentable. Maybe I'm losing something in doing this, but oh well.

My understanding of things, especially of God, is handicapped by the finite nature of my brain. God is bigger than the rationale of His creation. At the end of the day my approach to Him is (God willing) that of a humble servant. I really know nothing compared to the infinity of God's mind. I pray to keep the humility of that fact near to my heart. It would be easy for me (and I've done this so many times) to think I've got God all figured out and from here it's just "play my cards right". In keeping with what I've come to believe about God, a relationship with Him is the only hope of receiving the Joy-without-end that desire and pursuit of Him promise. I pray I don't fall victim to the hubris of thinking I've got God figured out.

"But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me."
2 Corinthians 12:9

Addict

2008-09-09T15:18:00.000-07:00

Christian Hedonism: Seeking God's pleasure and pleasure in God.

In "Surprised by Joy" C.S. Lewis defines joy in a very strange way. He says that joy is not getting what you want but the actual desire of it. He describes it as a longing. An intense desire ignited by something incredibly good.

Mark Driscoll described his hell as an airplane. He evidently hates everything about flying. But he described how the experience becomes a heavenly one when accompanied by his wife. How the loneliness, the discomfort and the pain of flying is erased by the presence of one whom he loves dearly.

When we are near people that we care about our desire for them is increased. In the same sense with God the more time we spend with Him the greater our desire becomes. The more we experience God the more we want to experience God.

In a sense, I believe God's love is the antithesis to the seductions of the world. Whereas reliance on all earthly pleasures for fulfillment will lead us to unhealthy, unfulfilling and even deadly dependency, reliance on God's love results in a dependency on something healthy, fulfilling and life-giving. Reliance to worldly solutions can cause a person to deteriorate into a shell of a being. The reason that addictions are so prevalent in the human race is that we are designed to love something with reckless abandon and we pridefully choose things that are controllable but insufficient. I would even be so bold to say that our need for love is infinite and we apply the finite, that which has a beginning and an end to that which does not, our souls. We are designed to be addicted to God's infinite love.

To illustrate my idea in the negative, imagine that sin as the Bible refers to it is offensive to God because it steals His glory and harms us. It takes from us our native purpose. Many of the things that seem so good, and in fact are good, become harmful when used wrong. That is to say when we use what God has made for us as though we were made for it then we sin. And the thing that gets overlooked so often is that sin is offensive to God because it harms the ones He loves so dearly. We often don't see how something that feels good could be harming us, so we naturally assume that God must just be a killjoy. Unfortunately, we make this uninformed judgment on God because we are ignorant to how much we are missing out on.

In light of this belief it makes sense to try fulfilling our every desire in God. This means when you feel bored, horny, depressed, empty, ugly, unwanted, hateful, anything and everything, you turn the desire over to God. Love is the answer to all these things. Turning our need for love over to God is what He requires of us,"Love the Lord, your God with all your Heart." We desire every day. The opportunities are there. In seeking to let God fill me when I feel these needs occur I allow my love for God to increase and increase my desire (joy) for Him. In loving God, you necessitate more need for Him. He grows like an addiction in you.

The Aftermath

2008-09-08T18:21:00.000-07:00

I still have no idea where that outburst of hatred and self loathing came from. What I do know is that it is the lowest I have been since April when I gave my life to Christ. I am still angry, but I've calmed down some at least. I had such hope in remaining close to Christ. I had faith that he would keep me close. I feel so marred. It wasn't like I didn't know my natural inclination to run away from him. I just thought He would prevent me from doing so. I thought He would keep from doing myself in. Evidently not. I know full well how powerless I am to keep myself from doing myself harm, not to mention other people, but I thought that God would protect me from myself. I feel some serious doubts happening in me.

What am I suppose to think when God lets me fall? Where do I turn when I feel like I can't trust myself and I can't trust God? I feel doomed. Maybe like God is toying with me, that maybe I'm not one of His children and He's just starting the torment of Hell early.

How uh...This is stupid. God loves me.

The question in my head was this: Why does God get all the credit for good and I get all the credit for bad. Why do I get the credit for torturing myself, judging and hating my self? Why does God, or rather how does God dodge the bullet for all the Bad? The question gets undermined by the more practical question: Will I demand an answer or accept the love that is available to me? Will I picket the pearly gates with a sign that says,"The garden of Eden was an inside job!" or will I put down my sign and let God love me?

God doesn't make sense at all to my little mind and admittedly I have risen yet again to think that I could formulate Him. An astounding mind once thought for man to understand God is for a stream to flow higher than its source. In a manner of speaking, there is an intended place for me to meet God, a role that I am intended to play. My heads gotten too big again and I've tried to grab something that isn't mine. I demanded it. I've forgotten whats good for me. I'm officially embarrassed.

So the Jonah picture becomes clear. He hates himself. He punishes himself and tries to punish others. He denies God's grace though he witnesses it in epic, miraculous displays. He fails to let himself need God. He thinks has a better plan, and God saves him from himself. What God was trying to show Jonah was His unrelenting love. Jonah says, "Never mind the whale, never mind the shade plant, I don't need you, I don't want you, go away and let me do this my own way." And God replies to me, "When will you see that I don't need your payment of misery, I've already got it covered. Just relax and let me love you."

So, here we go again.

Self-Destruct

2008-09-08T17:35:00.000-07:00

My church just did a sermon series about Jonah. It's agonizing to look deeply into the story of Jonah for me because in doing so I'm forced to see the things that have driven me and continue to drive me.

Jonah had a calling. It was simple. He was supposed to go to a big scary city and tell the people there to turn to God. He decided he wouldn't go and that he had a better plan. He took off in the other direction. En route he got swallowed by a fish. After the fish spit him out he went and did his assigned task. He got the lesson that God was trying to teach him, right? Nope. He preaches in the city and they repent and instead of rejoicing at God's mercy, he goes and sulks. He hates that these people, whom he doesn't even know, get to be spared. He writhes in agony in the desert, wishing for death under the hot sun. What is striking to me is Jonah's affinity for putting himself in these life-threatening, miserable places when it seems there is always a more pleasant and suitable alternative. When on the boat he could have said, "God, I'm sorry please forgive me, the sailors will turn the boat around, I'll go do your work now." Nope, he says,"This is my fault and I will pay the price. Toss me overboard. Save yourselves." When the city is saved he could have celebrated with them and rejoiced. Nope. He crawls out into the desert and pouts, waiting in vain for the city to get the Sodom and Gomorrah treatment. He hates them from afar, even though he has been the instrument of their salvation.

The book of Jonah is short. Only four chapters. The last chapter is about Jonah conversing with God about his anger. God asks him if he does well to be angry and Jonah answers,"Yes, angry enough to die." The dude is so angry he wants to cease. And why? Because God grew a plant over his head to shade him and then God killed it the next day. He was angry because a plant died? This bit confused me in an unnerving way for the majority of the series. It finally made sense when I realized the common factor between the two instances that Jonah tried to commit suicide. The common denominator is his pride. Jonah's twisted logic: he rages at the destruction of a soulless plant and doesn't bat an eye at his own self abuse. He tries to carry his own burden then blames God for the pain he suffers when he finds he cannot bear the load. Rather than swallow his pride and accept freedom from his self-inflicted chains, he persists in paying his way. This results in a self-hatred so severe that he wishes for death.

Oh the pain of learning Jonah's story. I am so much like him that it seems he lived only to show me how God isn't baffled by my indignance. This weekend I have done so much harm to the people that God has used me to help. I have seen God's power work through me in the lives of my dear friends. Alas, my own inability to accept grace for myself has turned me into a jealous prick. I don't know how to explain the pathology of how I got to the place I am at, but I know that it is a bad place. I'm angry enough to die. Somehow the burden that I had lain on Jesus has crept on to my back again. I have prayed three time in the last 24 hours for God to let me die. The future looks bleak to me. I can only anticipate more of this torment and I don't know how I'm ever going to make through, never mind why God would want me to. I can say all the things I know I'm supposed to say, but I would just be parroting.

I wept in church again. I cried and cried and this time it didn't feel good. I didn't take communion. I sat there wallowing in dissociated self-pity afterword. I tried to go home but only got the first stoplight and turned back toward the church, hoping again. I found Travis and we went to pizza. I was insufferable and vicious to Travis and Laurie as they tried to cheer me up, and tell me all the right things to do. I tried my best not to bite their faces off. We left and Travis asked for the millionth time what was wrong and I told him not to worry about it. Perfect 10 on the self-pity maximizer. I struggled to not abuse his care for me although all I wanted to do was tell him to fuck off. I said something similar to Katie last night, although I think there was much more transference from my mom in her case. I'm sick of playing the strong one, the leader. I wanted it, and now I despise those who gave it to me.

Travis's face looked like the kid in "Old Yeller" when he realized that Old Yeller wanted to hurt him.

I am a hateful monster at my core. I need to be healed or put down.

Love Me, Love Me, Say that You Love Me

2008-09-06T12:49:00.003-07:00

I have a horrible quandary. I fear certain people that possess the very things that I want to find in people. I want to learn from people that have skills and talents that I admire, but I'm terrified that I won't have anything to offer them. I'm terrified that I will be unappreciated by people that have what I want. My binary understanding of people and values is so unwieldy.

Spin

2008-09-06T11:04:00.001-07:00

I feel like a ship.

The rudder, dragging in the past, trying to steer the future. How strange.

Even as I write I attempt to steer myself. What I lay down now are what I hope to be the foundations, nay, the requirements of the future. Dynamics are astoundingly simple yet overwhelmingly complex. Doubt will destroy you before you set out if you attempt to have a perfect plan before execution. The striking thing about navigation through life is for all our attempts to plot the course, it will never be certain, for the abstract is only an echo of reality. Finite minds can never know. Relativity seriously crushes my mind like a black hole.

Back to the point. I use the past to leverage the future. Reality is the contact point, the line if you will, between the past and the future. It's so bizarre to me, how this thing called "Now" imprints into our minds. The "world" as we refer to it is the real abstraction. Somehow the stimuli coming into our sense translates into meaning, and into cohesion. But the things we generally live as though they control us, actually only exist because we believe they do. We believe what comes down the line from our senses is what is out there. But without the mind, what would it all be? Darkness, silence, emptiness. What you are experiencing as you read, right now, is reality. It exist because we exist. The plans and plots of humans are all based on abstractions of what we have come to accept (on faith, mind you) as what reality means. What the heck am I trying to say?

I guess all this is to say that humanity, reality, perception and the whole thing is just too impossible pointed and strange when you look at it to conceive that this is a random chance. This thing necessitates God. The finite nature of man, his relativity is also necessary. We know something, but not everything for that would be self-existence, and not nothing for that would be non-existence. We're in the middle. We're on the line. It seems the soul is the line between nothing and something. How does God work into this?

Honestly, I'm scared to make inquiries about God. I'm scared of people telling me I haven't read enough, or that I'm blasphemous. I'm only slightly scared of God Himself. This seems so backwards to me. Whatever.

This contact point idea of the human soul being poised on the edge of meaning and nothingness begs the question: Why? We have some control but only relatively speaking. We can't contain all the knowledge of the universe, but we can't know nothing either. It seems that we can only change the direction we choose to face. It seems to me that God set us here to choose. The material world is an illusion that seems to seduce man's desire for control. But without the capacity to control, any attempt to do so seems hopeless. On the line we can face in the direction of Something or nothing.

I feel like I'm losing steam writing about this. And confusing myself.

Three things have happened in the last three days that have piqued my interest.

1.) I've been sitting in a coffee shop for the last two hours and two girls have sat at the table behind me at separate times and each were wearing perfumes that two of my ex-girlfriends wore. One was Victoria's secret something or other. The other I don't know. The incident took me back to places in my heart like a driving into a fog and beginning to think that you are somewhere you are not.

2.) Last night I was laying on my bed (ever notice the distinction between "on" a bed and "in" a bed? Does anyone else treat their bed like a cocoon?) and feeling sorry for myself about something or other and I prayed that God would do something to help me out of this self-pity. The strangest answer to prayer came. I opened my eyes and looked at my dirty sheet and could hardly recognize the fabric or the bed or my pillow. It all looked so foreign and weird. "What is this?" I thought. That moment I was just lifted right out of context and saw my tiny slice of reality as so strange and petty that it was almost comical. I just layed there and stared at the oddity of a sheet, and pondered it and appreciated the strange concept. It felt new. It was mystery found in the mundane. The tiny criss-cross soaked with skin oil and littered with bread crumb boulders. Then I got up and walked to the coffee shop and ogled the majesty of a cool Seattle night with all the awe and frivolity of a child at the circus.

3.)This incident requires a bit of backstory. I have been pretty poor lately. I have bills piling up (not that that is a new aspect of my life) and my cellphone just got shutoff. My wallet got stolen a few days ago. I don't know what God is trying to orchestrate through all of this, but I've been praying for some deliverance, providence, whatever. So I get the notion to go out and trying and make some money on the street playing guitar on Thursday. I figure this will be a great way for God to shower me the money I need, (and feed my ego). I find a good spot on First Ave. on this three step stair case to nowhere in the middle of the sidewalk. I'm sitting there and this guy walks up to me and asks me if he could play a song on my guitar. I say sure and he takes my guitar and howls something that sounds like a cow that has smoked crack for 30 years. I laugh and thank him for the "song". He sits down and I play some more. Then he asks me if he can buy my guitar. I say no, of course. But then he offers me $500 dollars for it. I instinctively decline again and he looks at me like I'm insane. I considered it for a second thinking how I could pay almost all my bills with the money and then I turn him down again. He left and I played for another two hours making about four dollars and fifty cents. Just this morning it hit me that God was providing. I prayed and prayed for some providence and when it came around I said,"Uh, no thanks. I need guitar. I'm gonna be a rock star, and besides it has sentimental value." The trade I made was my security for a piece of wood and metal that is an idol representing my prideful attempt to be admired. I bow to it. It'd be easy for me to whip myself about this now, but I'm choosing grace. God will still take care of me in spite of my noncooperation.

A Note: I found myself feeling alienated after write this entry. I am fearful that making a statement from where I am will be suicidal. I am afraid that I will paint myself into a social corner by being bold/stupid enough to muster a thought and proclaim it. I'm not sure what's right and true, but I'm trying to know. I hope it does not ruin me.

A Reprieve from Myself

2008-09-05T20:11:00.000-07:00

I spent something like three hours reading web comics right before I wrote the last post. Then I exerted myself as hard as I could. Ugh. I am exhausted. I collapsed. I'm trying to hard. I give up. As if I've got any choice. I feel so weak, I need rest more than anything. I fall down into God's grace. He's got every single molecule contained in His plan.

I don't want to beat myself, but I really am ridiculous. I'm so slow to learn. I'm so forgetful. The lessons I've been taught in grace are so immutable. Huge. God has demonstrated His love so many times in ways that are nothing short of miraculous. And yet, I continue to fall on my own understanding. I repent. I surrender. My thought only serves to suppress my hope. Yeah, people are gonna say,"You're just excusing yourself from the responsibilities of life. You are a coward and an ignorant one at that." That is exactly what I'm doing and saying. My only hope is to abandon my attempts, and turn to God with all my heart.

I've been criticized for saying things like that, because people think I'm denying man's free will. Not true. I'm only concluding that all my will needs to be turned to God directly. Not trying to love God through any sort of action, but seeking Him in a personal, real, direct communication. I believe that all the goodness that tends to cloud my thoughts will occur as naturally as breathing if I pursue this connection with God through Jesus. Talking to God like a lover. Any other pursuit is a wasted effort fueled by human pride. Even in this pursuit, it feels more like a submission. God's pursuit of me is infinitely greater than any attempts of mine to receive Him.

I know this is radical and extreme. It's necessary. I feel so free. Join me if you dare.

Ego

2008-09-05T17:34:00.000-07:00

I once told my friend Mark how powerful it would be if a pastor was secure enough in grace and bold enough to be public about his insecurities. I said this in reference to a particular pastor that I find a bit prideful. Now I turn the critical eye to myself.

I'm afraid that if I expose my fears to the public that I will be discredited and no one will listen to me. I want to be a leader. It's no secret. I want people to follow me. I want to be respected and feared. The struggle is knowing how to surrender this desire to God's will. Undoubtedly they are selfish ambitions. I want so badly to erase this paragraph, but something tells me I must not. I'm a greedy, power hungry narcissist. I want control. Where do I go from here.

Humility. Everything God says about leading people points to that word. I have tried to construct a mental image of what a Godly leader looks like. It's disjointed and shaky, and by no means complete, but here is what I have thus far. A Godly leader is one who inspires by his own life instead of imposing his ideals on others' lives. A leader is one who empowers his followers by being a conduit of love, rather than driving with a whip of condemnation. A Godly leader places his own needs last before the needs of His people. This point is often understated, or lost in cliche-ridden Christianese banter. The needs of the people include physical needs like food shelter etc. but also include, if not primarily, spiritual/emotional needs. This, in my experience, is painfully overlooked. It means really loving people as Christ loves. That is the power that gives us strength and therefore as a Godly leader one should focus primarily on this facet of relationship. Leadership should be organic and merited by evidence of God's love flowing forth from an individual.

I am afraid of this venture. My capacity for controlling people is scary. I don't mean to say this in a conceited way, as if to brag of how influential I am, but rather to confess my manipulative tendencies. I fear the idol that being a "declared" leader could become. But in the same stroke, I wouldn't be so foolish as to tell God He can't overcome my sinfulness for His glory. On the contrary, I see the potential for His glory through and in spite of my flaws all the more.

Pray for me!

Dive

2008-09-03T17:57:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about all the ways I let people impose on who I am in. My fear of people is unacceptable. I am validated by Jesus alone. I pray that God will give me boldness to be a light to everyone. I'm enraged at my cowardice. I have the greatest thing a human being can experience and I'm worried about stepping on a few toes to share it.

I was thinking about what to write about today and I realized I am shy about writing how deliriously hopeful I am. It seems unrealistic and foolish to people and I've subconsciously started adopting that mindset of "reasonable" doubt. More likely I've always had it and now it's becoming evident. I'm don't think being agreeable is an inherently bad thing, but in this world of negativity and sin, I think I'm far too agreeable. You know when you say someone is a pessimist and they retort,"I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist." Well, I have a problem with that mindset, whether it's realism or pessimism. My basic assumption about life is that life is not as it should be, and this world is broken. Thus, I would commit a fatal flaw to define my reality by "the way things are" as I see them. I prescribe to a higher ideal, and I will choose to define the world around me, set goals, and live according to that standard. That standard is the Bible, and it's ridiculously hopeful, damnit!

People (mostly Christians, ironically) have told me all along the way that I'm setting myself up for disappointment, that God won't do the things that I hope in. They've told me to believe in things that are reasonable and safe. "Don't get your hopes up," seems to be the underlying sentiment. Unfortunately, the life I left behind to follow Christ was so bad that I was ready to kill myself at the drop of a hat. I cannot simply settle for a nice quiet life in the suburbs going to my trendy church every Sunday. I must hope for something great, because it's all or nothing. Everything I am, every drop of life in my soul rest on the truth of Jesus. I will hope for a life of pious righteousness. I will hope to touch millions of people.I will hope to love God with everything I am. I will hope to hear God speak. I will hope to love every person that I meet. I will hope to fearlessly offend the sinful norms. I will hope to stand in the face of death for my God. I will hope to change the world. I will hope for the impossible.

I want to actually live a life that has room for big mistakes and failures. Up till now I've been walking the safe and riskless path. Minimized chance of horrible things happening but no chance of phenomenally good things either. The simple life, the American Dream, the whatever you want to call it is not for me. It is no life. I may make some horrible mistakes, but at least I'm committed to something at last. If God doesn't catch me as I dive into Him, then at least I can say I jumped rather than trying to get away from the edge my whole life. I will be able to say that I lived for something.

You may think I'm melodramatic and deluded. You may think I'm insane, living in a fantasy world. We will see.

Confidence

2008-09-02T14:02:00.000-07:00

Huh. What can be said...I love Jesus!

I wish I was a great poet or musician so I could create something really phenomenal for God. What on earth is a boy in love to do? Well. I will try. I guess what's really important is not the quality of whatever I do in man's terms but the sincerity of my heart in doing it. I'm sure I could be more sincere, relatively speaking, but here and now, I don't think I could be more in love with Jesus.

It's been a week since my last "slip". I feel so good. I've come to the conclusion that the only way for me to feel confidence in a good state of mind for it to be dependent on God. I have much clarity now, but it took almost a week for the ill-effects of my sin to lift. I could never have known how sad my life was without knowing how good it could be with God. I'm imprinted now. Even in the darkness of last week I still clung to hope in God. There were no other options. I can never go back.

An epiphany hit me today at an SA meeting. In a sense we're like spiritual, emotional and physical machines, and somehow these factors are all connected. I don't at all mean to reduce us to simple machines but only wish to paint a picture of the way we function. A machine needs energy to run, it needs fuel. So I think of myself in this way. When I get these urges they are so strong they suggest a very real need. I used to beat myself up pretty hard, hating myself for the fact that I would long so much for things that hurt me. The reality is that I've just become so used to using the wrong things for my needs that I confused the need with what I've chosen to try to fill it with. I started believing that my need was a need for lust, or a need for eating too much, or for getting loaded, the comfort du jour.

It's not the need itself, but filling it with insufficient solutions was the cause of my pain. To go back to the machine analogy, putting lighter fluid into a gas tank might make the car go but not for very long. I've realized that when I feel like I'm breaking down without my typical comforts, it's not a reason a to get upset, to kick the car, so to speak. The machine I am was built with the need for fuel from the beginning. I was made to need God's love though, all the unhealthy substitutes. The solace that I have reached comes out of this realization: Every time I feel empty longing for whatever it is that I think I need, I can call out to God and He will fill me up with what I really need. Every time I feel what's commonly referred to as "temptation" is an opportunity for me to be filled with God's satiating love.

How Lovely is your dwelling place,
O Lord Almighty!
My Soul yearns, even faints,
for the courts of the Lord;
My heart and my flesh cry out
for the living God.

God's mystery seduces me. The brilliance of Him turns me on. Seriously. I'm enraptured with the song He sings in my ear. I will fight with all the passion of lover fighting for the honor of his love. I've found my place in the universe. I want to be here forever. I pray His love for me ignites a boldness to stand up in the face of all who would oppose Him. I have no more interest in loving God in a polite way. I want to stop fearing people and start fearing God.

The Gambler

2008-08-24T19:35:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was so good that I decided to celebrate by acting out.

Pop Quiz:

Guess who feels like a zombie?
A.) The guy who DJ's on public radio
B.) Ben Stein
C.) David

If you answer C you would be correct. If you answered A or B you'd also be correct.

AGH!

I ranted and bitched about how God shouldn't leave me to struggle with my sin. I want desperately to be free of it. I cry out to Him. I'm so devastated every time I mess up. I feel like my heart stops pumping blood and my soul shrivels up into a crusty prune. I just can't understand how this is supposed to work. I know that I'm utterly powerless to overcome this addiction. I can't stop. I know when I want it there is no chance of me stopping myself. I will simply cave in without even fighting. Why God!? Please help me!

And to add to this agony, I'm humiliated by my own fickle words. I proclaim Jesus and His glory one day and curse Him the next with my unbelief. I don't know what to trust. I told my friend Katie that I feel like a lab rat who is going crazy from inconsistent results from the lab techs. I'm losing it. I don't know what to count on.

I'm really on edge here. Like a gambler who has the fringe hope that this one will be the jackpot, I call on God yet again. Please, Jesus. I can't take anymore of this failure. It hurts me so much. It suffocates my heart. HELP ME.

Joy

2008-08-23T19:56:00.000-07:00

I'm looking out over a sea of green tree tops that modestly conceal the city below. The Cascade Mountains connect the jagged edge of the urban forest to the pale sky. Watching the mountains turn from light blue to purple and the sky dim, a new light in my heart rises.

The feeling that I had seen everything to see was stalking me from behind dark trees. I feared yesterday that I was doomed to walk a closed circuit through life. As that idea was invisibly bearing down on me from every direction like a poltergeist, suddenly newness emerged. The scenes of life were the same, but somehow they all looked and felt different today.

I'm in love with life today. I don't know how it is possible. It is the miracle of joy. I can only see ugly self reckoning ahead for me. With all my therapy, 12-stepping and journaling I'm seeking a path of pain. The excitement comes from a fundamental change in the foundation of my consciousness: Hope.

It's an ugly life, an ugly world and I'm alive in it. The numbness has passed and the pain is promising. The emptiness is gone. The fight is real, and the fight is now. I fear the worst thing that has ever happened to man is the feeling of insignificance. The fight is for me. The fight is for you. The fight is for all of us. The joy is seeing it and knowing that it is our fight.

Every human being will fight whether they know it or not. Misery is to pretend there is no battle. Some will make their fight to simply not know the truth. How can one live with all of this pain if there is no purpose for it? What utter denial and agony! To embrace the fight as a reality of life is to know joy.

I say, "This is my plight, I accept it and I will engage with a knowledge of purpose."

I am realizing the deep-seated nature of my issues. I'm unveiling my narcissism, self-righteousness, dishonesty, and the list goes on. I'm starting to be able to see the emotional weight of who I am and how fundamentally broken I am. There is million idiosyncrasies that I labeled as "normal" within the grace of my family context. I really thought I was pretty close to respectable and good. I have many people fooled as well. Or at least I thought I did. When I tear down the backdrop that society plays for my ego and I expose myself to God's reality I then see the immensity of my inadequacy. And I've just begun.

This ugliness is bigger than my ability to overcome it. I know this. I am overwhelmed by it. But somehow I am inspired above this defeat to say God is good, and in the midst of my suffering I will continue to proclaim it.

Read yesterday's posts for a contrast. Hallelujah!

Floating

2008-08-22T22:48:00.000-07:00

I just watched the "Diving Bell and the Butterfly". It is about a man who has a stroke at 40-something and becomes completely paralyzed except for his left eyelid. He learns to communicate by blinking. He describes his life like a diving bell that he can't move in. He just floats there forever underwater.

I'm reading three different C.S. Lewis books right now and I'm overwhelmed by the clarity with which he writes. I want to express myself like that. I wish I could speak my thoughts. Right now I feel like I'm in a diving bell of thought. It's all in here. I want it out. I want it out of me so badly. I'm hoping that honesty will be enough to compensate for my lack of language skill.

I have a desperate thought on my mind right now. I'm out on a limb. I have told so many people about the transformation that is taking place in my life. I've spoke of Jesus' power with such confidence and excitement that now the pressure to perform is weighing on me. I feel like there is much face to be lost. Here I am dipping ever closer to the bottom again. I'm ashamed to say that I'm failing when I told so many people that I was sure of God's strength. The worst is the people who don't have a faith of their own. I fear they look at me and think,"So this is the "awesome" power of Jesus at work, huh?"

My Prayer

God, I've sang your praises when it was good. I sang them loud and fearlessly. Now I'm failing again. I put my faith in you, weak as it is, it's all I've got. Here I am feeling the desperation for righteousness and completeness in you. I know I'm a slave to the approval of my fellow man, but I put it on the line for you. How can I say,"Jesus is the way", when my life and my actions are a pathetic mess of sin? How can I proclaim your truth when my life denies it? I feel like a liar and a fool.

Furthermore, I'm calling you out on your promises. I am submissive to my powerlessness. I'm not denying it or fighting of my own will. I'm waiting. People are mocking me for not "trying harder" but your word says to wait for righteousness. I believe in you, I believe in your promise to credit my faith as righteousness. Lift me out of the mud, Father. This is me calling on you in what little confidence I have.

I'm sorry I don't have the reverence or fear for you that I should. I'm scared and scattered. I'm angry. This is where I am. You said you'd take me, so take me.

911

2008-08-22T20:31:00.000-07:00

My post just got deleted by the backspace key. I guess it wasn't meant to be.

It's okay. All I needed to say was this. I am a failure. A man of God said it best,"...I have created the Grand Canyon of failure in my heart. But I think God sees the spaciousness inside me in a different way than I do. I think He sees it as more room in which to unleash an ocean of grace. "

I hurt myself again with my lust. I feel dead inside. My best intentions are suicidal. I want what will kill me. I need rescue . God please change my heart. Words can't express the depth of my emptiness. Fill me.

Sufficent

2008-08-21T15:14:00.000-07:00

My heart could explode at this very moment.

Sara and I decided that we would not communicate until January 1st, 2009. I felt like I couldn't rely on God completely with her in my life right now. She felt the same. So there it is. I'm not confident with these new legs of grace and dependence on God yet . I can't be the man she deserves and I will destroy both of us if we're part of each others' lives right now.

Obedience is so hard. And painful.

The reason I can't have Sara in my life at the moment is that I'm still prone to try and feed off her rather than support her. Not in a financial way but emotionally. I've spent the vast majority of my years looking for a girl to fill the void in me. In all those years I applied the hope of a girl "completing" me to just about every area of my life. I went around getting disappointed by girl after girl. Now I have found the true answer in my relationship with Jesus. I need the reality of God's power in my life to settle into the cracks and set. With that confidence, I can love Sara. I mean give love, not take. Love in the positive. We can be whole together, rather than collapse into each others emptiness. That emotional black hole is not fun.

The hardest part about this situation is that I know what all the bad possibilities are. I've seen dependency run its course in the plethora of bad relationships I've been in. What I don't know is how a good relationship looks. I have vague theories, but really I can only project my own experiences onto the future, and it looks impossible. From this vantage point I can see two promises:

1.)God will have all of me.
2.)Sara will have all of me.

It's obvious that I need to learn a new way. I don't know how these things will come to pass, but luckily the outcome doesn't depend on my foresight.

The struggle with lust continues, also. This battle may never be over, but I know that until I consistently let God's strength prevail I can't be anybody's anything.

To be completely honest, I don't always feel complete in Christ, but right now I do. However God brings Sara and I together will be beyond-my-wildest-dreams amazing. That much I'm sure of.

Falling

2008-08-16T13:40:00.000-07:00

I had a dream about Alaska for the third time the other night. My best friend from high school was in this one. We were driving there in a 15 seat van with a trailer. My friend was driving and, true to form, he was driving too fast. This always irritated me but in the dream I was getting terrified because the road was built on a high cliff. We came around a corner and the outside tires started to slide off the sharp edge of the road. I gave him a look that said, "Why aren't you being careful? Why do you always show off? You're scaring the crap out of me, you jerk!" (looks can say all that in my dreams.) By then it was too late, we were falling. All in one moment I nearly exploded from anticipation, yet resigned to death. I grabbed my friends hand, squeezed hard and said,"I love you." He didn't squeeze back. We just kept falling but we never hit the didn't ever hit. Then I decided to wake. That moment in that van was so near to heaven. I was ready. I knew it would be painless. It was terrifying and joyous all at the same second. It was possibly the most real I have ever felt.

All the dreams I've had about Alaska have been morose. There is a fearful essence to the place I remember. I don't know what it means, but I know it means something. The emotion of those dreams has to mean something.

Today I failed again. I succumbed to lust and acted on it. The hardest thing to do right now is hope. Six months ago it seemed like I had so much hope and love just flowing out me. Now I can barely move my fingers to type. I am so defeated by myself. I just want to dive bomb into full on relapse. I want to give up. I need rescue so badly. What could this all mean? I want badly to wallow in self pity right now, but as I write I feel a small light growing in me. I think it's just enough to say the words, "God is in control." I want to go on sinning. I pray that God will rescue me from myself. That's all I can muster.

Hellos and Goodbyes

2008-08-15T18:48:00.000-07:00

Life is so strange. Sometimes I look around and I feel like I'm in a painting. The color, the people, light, all of it. It so surreal. Praise God for the freedom to sit back and watch the world once and awhile. Peace and security are such wonderful things.

My prayer tonight is to love without fear. I want to smile on the worst and extend love in exchange for abuse, insult and cold glares. The weight of that longing is much. The truth is that I'm pretty cowardly and I am cursed by knowing how good it could be, how great a man I could be. Just the thought of what that might entail scares me. The ideals of manhood are pouring into my mind as I soak in more of God's truth, but the rift of who I am and who I could be is growing pretty steadily. It's ridiculously impossible for me to live up to the image of a "man of God" I'm beginning to piece together. All the better, though. This is how God will get his glory. Looks like miracle weather.

Lately I've been a little overwhelmed by the darkness swirling around me. Everyone is so broken. There is dull sadness in nearly every eye I meet. The negativity steals my joy. It feels like there is a regime in place that has outlawed smiling and anyone who flashes one is some sort of renegade. Whenever I feel bold enough to brave it I retreat when not met with a supporter of the cause. I'm not talking about the mouth-only smile. You know what I mean. The plaster-cold Vanna-White-grin that is sometimes accompanied by a laugh that cuts like a knife with its insincerity. Those smiles are government issue Stars of David. The genuine smile I'm referring to seems more like a battle cry. I'm so sick and tired of being scared of showing my soul to the world. I don't want to be a sniper, I want to be on the front line, I want to be Achilles.

My father told me one day as a boy he decided that he would stop smiling. He said he would go around grinning at anyone like a fool, and one day he decided he was tired of being everyone's fool. I don't think he's ever fully recovered. I remember when the same things happened to my little brothers. I remember deciding that a frown was manly. It's an epidemic.

As early as kindergarten I can remember being ashamed of crying, too. Therefore I was determined to never shed a tear. I worked hard. By the time I was 21 I had denounced emotions as the cause of all mankind's problems. Last November I got a phone call and found out that someone very dear to me had nearly succeeded at taking their own life. It was then that I realized I couldn't cry as bad I wanted to. Since that moment I have been fixated on expressing my full range of emotion with confidence, or more accurately, vulnerability. Even the Bible shows a picture of men who cry. Paul, David, and Jesus "wept bitterly". So it's a goal.

In the interest of my fragile faith it would be good to end on a triumphant note. I have been seeing a counselor name Caleb Mitchell for a year and 3 months. This man has seen me change from an emotional vampire, a sex addict, a drug abuser, and a lost soul into a lover of Jesus and has been instrumental in all this. He walked with me through heartbreak, withdrawals, unemployment. and worse. He was gracious when I wouldn't pay him. He was loved me when insufferable. He has shown me what a man looks like, and been something of a father to me. He was Christ to me. He one of the best friends I've ever had, and I love this man.

Throughout this miraculous sojourn, I hadn't cried once in his presence, mainly because I fear men.

I go to Caleb's office last Tuesday, like usual, and plop down on his crappy couch. We start our typical banter to get going, but he says that he's got something important to say before I tell him what I want to talk about. With what seems like a an enormous amount of build-up he says he has decided to quit counseling. My first reaction is gut-level emotion. I start to well up but then instinctively swallow it and stare at the ceiling. I ask him what I'm supposed to do. He tells me he doesn't know because he's never never done this. I stare at his bookshelf and try to hide in the titles. After a minute he ask me what I'm thinking about and I say, "I hate myself for being unable to show my emotions, for not being able to show I care and that this is hurting me." He says,"You just did." I reply,"No they're are just empty words, just like my Dad and his I-love-you's." He then says,"I know it's real, I can see it in your face. And beside that, this is about you and me. Fuck your dad." By the end of that sentence the tears were already soaking into my beard as I looked him the eye and cried.

After a minutes I laugh/sobbed partly because just at that moment I noticed what a funny shape his head was, and also because I realized what had just taken place. I had just done the scariest thing I could imagine: cried tears of love for a man whom I fear. God broke my heart open at long last. Maybe I'll go get "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants II" and some Ben and Jerry's and let the floodgates bust since I'm on a roll. Hah!

My Friend

2008-08-12T15:45:00.001-07:00

My friend Travis. He is so dear. I hope he doesn't leave, cuz I like when he's near!

That was a poem for my friend. He's a neat guy. Yes. Neat. I met Travis about month ago. I squished into a car in an alley near my apartment and there he was in all his skinny art student glory. He told me he liked David Bazan, and bummed cigarettes off his coworker, but he doesn't smoke. Later we watched seven consecutive episodes of "Flight of the Conchords", double dipped chips in the guacamole and sour cream, and camped in a friends backyard. The next morning we woke up at 6am and drove a guy to the airport.

Travis is subtle. He is a master of understatement. He has dirty blonde hair that always gravitates to the center, like an anti-part. I suspect this is by design. His eyebrows seem to be furrowed more often than not, implying some intense undercurrent of braining. He's got blue eyes and a tentative smile. He is always holding back but spilling out all at the same time.

Fun Facts about Travis

1. Travis has had sideburns since he could grow them.
2. Travis only owns two pairs of pants.
3. Travis does an awesome Bob Dylan impersonation.
4. Travis does a not awesome bronx accent.
5. Travis can draw pictures with great skill.
6. Travis likes dingy diners.
7. Travis loves Jesus.
8. Travis is an Olympian.
9. Travis is a storm cloud with a smile on it.
10. Travis rocks the scene.

Travis is only a few blocks away from me. I am really excited that we met because it's like being a kid again having friends in your neighborhood. You can call them up whenever and hang out for no reason at all. Travis and I are good friends because we are purposely aimless. We know we want something, but we just don't know what it is.

In my life it has been so hard to find people to walk beside, rather than follow or lead. I walk beside Travis. God has blessed me with his friendship.

Under Deconstruction

2008-08-11T16:46:00.000-07:00

Today is all emotion. I feel like so much has happened to me this weekend, but I have no clue how to say exactly what. I know that I'm growing up. I feel like a child, but I also feel like a man. I'm tentatively stepping into the life that God has for me. Each step feels like it will be off the edge into oblivion. I'm slowly embracing the dependency I have in God, and trying to be at peace with that.

After a minute of thought, I can say what a few of the catalysts for all this turmoil are. One is the looming "fourth step". For those of you not steeped in the 12 step lingo, a fourth step is where you make a "searching and fearless moral inventory". What that amounts to is a list of all the character defects, flaws, fears, resentments and sins I am prone to. I know you're probably thinking, "that's awfully negative," and it is. But there is a greater end than knowing what a douche bag I am. The big idea is that I take a look into my soul and see what makes me tick and drives me to addictive behavior. The philosophy is that guilt drives me to self-medication, and to counteract said guilt you locate the sources of it and then turn it all over to Jesus for freedom from it. Actually that's the whole 12 step bit in a nutshell. Recovery.

Anyway, I'm reeling hard from that long hard look in the mirror. The devil has been whispering in my ear many discouraging accusations. He says, "You are hopeless, you'll never get better. Jesus can't change you, just look how f'ed up you are!" I persist in the work at hand, because I need to continue digging deeper into myself and into Jesus, There really is no time in life I'm stationary, I'm either moving forward or moving backwards. That is to say, it's imperative that I keep on driving on, or I will be losing ground. It's very hard, though, to examine myself critically with the intention to tell someone else. Maybe the hardest thing I've ever done. It goes against every I've ever known. I pray it is worth it, because it's pretty damn painful.

The other reason this weekend has been so painful is because I prayed to be broken. I'll stop short of calling myself a fool for asking God to break me, because I know it's when I learn and grow, but dang, what was I thinking? I think I'll be some sort of super-Christian by praying that brave prayer, but every time God breaks me in some new creative way, I scream and whine. Sometimes I feel like the only thing I can ask for and consistently receive from God is brokenness. I am new to the game, I know, but right now it just seems that way. It's more likely I'm just seeing the ugly side of life, playing the martyr again.

My mom sent me a blurb by some famous Christian author, and it was surprisingly spot on. He said that rather than look at life like a series of ups and downs, "mountaintops and dark valleys", we should see the positive and negative as two parallel tracks that always exist. We can choose to see life as such, and choose on what to dwell. This weekend there was bad, and there was good. I chose to see the bad. I was expecting to see bad. I ate good food, I fasted, I went to persection-free church, I saw good friends and went two free concerts. I also broke down and wept at one concert, got swung at and spit on by a man I was trying to help, I hid from God, I wanted to isolate from people, I was lazy, and I hated how ugly I am inside. There are two tracks.

I see how Paul was a joy fiend. He figured out how to dwell on the promises of God. He located the safe havens of thought and lived there as much as possible. He shot up the Good News like an addict. I dare say Paul was a bit on the compulsive side. At least he wasn't washing his hands 73 times a day.

I need that security. I am petrified by the fear of depression. It can fog my eyes and suffocate my mind. I need those promises to be tattooed onto my mind. There are so many messages of condemnation in life that walking down the street for me like is like walking through a minefield. It seems it only takes a critical word and my castle walls are suddenly made of sand. I need to be built on the Rock. Simple as that. I think this fourth step business is the intention deconstruction of my walls, in order that something solid may take their place.

Even amidst this destruction of everything that I have sought comfort in, things are looking up. I'm beginning to see my castle for the prison it is, and the battering rams have begun crashing.

Prayer

2008-08-09T15:50:00.000-07:00

God,

Today the blog is yours. Today the blog is a prayer. I want to tell what's on my mind and in my heart. I am numb today. I woke up just hungover enough to know it from a night I feel like I shouldn't have been a part of. I had a donut for breakfast and skipped reading your word. I went to work. I came home. I took out more money for groceries since I spent my cash at the bar last night. Ugh. Jesus, you know all this. I feel like crap about it. I'm so terrified that I'm going to fall apart again and the cycle of destruction will begin again. I am yours. I say it, but when it actually means something, when it means taking a risk, or doing work, I am so quickly distracted. I want so desperately to be at the place I was before. I was fearless in you. I was self-assured. Is that what your trying to show me? That I haven't changed? That I'm just reaching the end of myself again? Is that it? Jesus. Please answer me. I want to be in you. I can hear the accusations from every place I turn. I don't want to turn to you because I'm afraid you, too, will tell me that I'm a failure and that I'm just not cut from the stuff you really want. I could say the "appropriate" thing here and claim your promises, but Father, I'm not convinced at this point. I'm scared. I remember the hideous life that follows close behind me, jaws gaping. I've got a horrible track record of performing under pressure. You know.

I hear you saying, "Let go." I want to. I want to trust you. But, Jesus, I'm stuck. I can't separate the promises you make from my insidious desire for independence. I keep this escape plan in my back pocket, planning to con you into enough blessing to make a break for it.

I'm a slave to it. Rescue me, Father. I'm a prisoner of myself. I see it. I see the bars. I feel the chains. Take me away from this black hole. The harder I try the harder it becomes. Take me. Take all of me. Please take me out of the way. Defeat me. Teach me that you're my only hope of peace.

If it takes a thorn in my flesh to keep me humble, I'll take it. To suffer in you is truly better than prospering in loneliness. Do whatever it takes. My sole desire is to say, "Your will, not mine, be done", and mean in with every fiber of my being. Take me. All of me. Destroy my walls, my selfish outposts. Take away all my defenses, besiege my soul and overthrow my tyranny. I long for you. I need you. I love you. I long to love you more. My words are empty. Fill them with sincerity. Change this wretched heart. Jesus, you have fathomed the depths of my darkness to depths I dare not consider. Fill the infinite chasm with your spirit. Invade me. Permeate me. i want to seep with your grace. Saturate my soul. Let your mercy drip from my words.

My words are like doing surgery with a chainsaw. Search my soul and know the depths from which I cry. Surge up from beneath and surround my anguished soul in your womb of consolation. I love you.

High ho, Silver?

2008-08-08T18:38:00.000-07:00

"What more can David say to you? For you know your servant, O Sovereign Lord."

I think I may fall in love with King David again. I grew up thinking he was pretty hot stuff. Shoot, he was King, he killed a giant as a prepubescent boy, he got the girl(s), and God recognized him as a man after His own heart. I was obsessed as a kid. And why not? He is the epitome of a boyhood idol.

Unfortunately, modern "manhood" caught up with me. I embraced an attitude of pacifism, adopted the image of a man that was intelligent, passive, enlightened. The idea that no fight was my fight seemed very enticing. Peace is the new black right?

John Eldridge does a pretty good job of eulogizing the man that lives in the heart of every little boy. Today I'm seeing the parallel between Jesus' resurrection and the resurrection of the man who died in the move from innocence. As I draw nearer to Him, I feel this inspiration in me well up, a fight that once was for the neighbor girl, once for the kid who got picked on, once for the good guys. I'm starting to see the disparity between who I have styled myself into and what God has planned for me. There is fear, fear of the real fight to be had, the fight of existence living in this broken world. Justice is alive in me, and I am desperate for the courage to fight for it.

To bring this rant to reality a little better, I have a confession. I am a coward. I am my father. I am every man who settles for a desk job, when the boy in him is still somewhere in a corner sulking for the "Hero" position he lost the courage to take. I am feeling the need for courage today. I am, in more ways than I can express, I more little boy than man. Today I have arrived at the crossroad that I took a wrong turn at so many years ago, and now stare down the right path, full of possibility and danger. I got scared of it. I hid in my apartment cowering under the weight of the call. I overate, I sulked, and then I slept. I succumbed to the lifestyle of fear, the lifestyle of self-medicating blindness. I ask to see God's will for my life and it terrified me.

I don't know how to work without being driven by guilt. I find this amazing emotional freedom in not working, in not caring. I know God wants me to work. I'm overwhelmed by the fact that He is calling me back to work. How? I need my work ethic to meet grace. I today I feel like something hangs in the balance with my deeds. I can't seem to let go of the idea that I need to do anything. I fear that my dad's presence is looming over me saying, "Sure, have your 'grace' or whatever, but you're still a lazy pile of shit in my eyes." And he says it through implication of his own life. He works so hard, and I can even see what an ugly mess it has made of his life and I still can't separate myself from the wrong. I feel the need for approval there is still so strong that I can scarcely deny my father's addictions. He's forcing himself on me by holding out his approval. AGH!

This leads into a whole other room of worms. Reconciliation with him is unimaginable. I'll leave that bit for another day.

Does every American man go through this fiasco just to find his place in the world? Does everybody have to dig through the past and pollute their innocent memories with hardened ugly truth of reality to move forward? Why is life so hard?

My father's voice inside me is mocking me right now for my anguish. But I'm anguished, I'm angry, I'm sad, I'm hurting. I'm seeking something better than his life.

He can shove it.

Inadequate Words.

2008-08-07T14:56:00.000-07:00

I got an email from a girl I know. I'm not afraid to use the word twitterpated. I am not afraid to say that I love her.

This is so wonderful. My love for her is growing. The weird thing is this: The more I mature as a person, the more I grow in Christ, the more I realize how little I know this girl that I say I love. I see how poorly I made room for her to be a real person to me. I never allowed her to define herself to me. I kept her in a nice, safe, oppressive box. As I allow the mystery of Sara to grow in my mind to better represent the vast human being she is I find that intrigue and fear of the unknown beckoning me. I am inspired to explore her. My confidence in God has allowed me to allow her to be a real person to me, for me to allow her to exist in full. Rather than be fearful of the idea of another person encroaching my on my ego, I am seduced by the possibilities her expansive horizons.

It is a miracle that I am not scared to death of the intensity of loving a real person.

Some might say that it's crazy to say that I'm in love with her even though the shallowness of my previous relations with her are becoming evident. The truth of how little I know her doesn't discourage me because of this single fact: what little I was able to understand about her in my selfish blindness was incredibly noble, beautiful, graceful, stunning, Godly, humble, and selfless. If God so decides that I will get to share my heart with a woman in this life, it, without question, will be hers.