Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Sometimes, when I am asked what am I doing...what am I going to do...I feel embarrassed, like an idiot for being in school this long, having degrees but wanting more education.

I am not sure why but I need to teach and if I can do it at the university level and I do not loose my mind that will be utterly fantastic.

As far as church work...I want so badly to feel like I belong to a church...but until then I am not sure...I just do not want to randomly work at a church with how easily I burn out and loose sight with such silly things going on...

I am loved.
I am wanted.
I am slowly changing...I want to become better.
To embrace the light and smile.
Can you teach me how to sing, how to move and what it means to be alive?
It's like starting again...and I just want to see, want to feel...want to breath.
All like I have never before.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Why is it I only see them is when someone dies?
I'm starting to feel more than slightly cursed.
So many thoughts.
So much potential drama.
All of this idioticy of trying to figure out the next semester at UM must have shot my confidence about being on stage in the face.

The prospect of auditioning or even trying out is utterly terrifying right now.

I suppose I feel the same way every time I try to write...but I guess it wouldn't be life without a mountain of existential dread staring me in the face.

Meh.

-_-

I can do this.
I can learn lines.
I can make phone calls until the jerks call me back.
I can be happy wherever I am, doing whatever I have to do...just so I can do what I am called to...because I am loved.

I am not a horrible, horrible unthinkable and unlovable sinner.

I am me.
Silly, tired, worn down, sick but still laughing me.
There is hope.
Even when I am rejected, told I am an idiot, made fun, belittled and made to feel I am nothing...there is still hope.

Just passing through here on my way to my real home.

Quote of the Day:

"The most common form of despair is not being who you are."
-Søren Kierkegaard
Because of my recent desire to try and make some tangible difference in the world beyond just praying, this article caught my eye:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12022303

Monday, December 27, 2010

Ah neurosis my old friend.
I believe Woody Allen wrote a lot about you...
Taking myself too seriously...such a funny notion.
Why am I so worried?
Why was I?

Hrmm...
Things are better than I could dream or hope.
Nothing wrong with emotion...just remembering to find peace...to find a place of rest and looking back...taking time for perspective.

Not just these silly little ideas floating in my head.
Love and truth still walk hand in hand...

Sunday, December 26, 2010

Outside of saying help...and hoping that somehow things work out right...

What else is there to say?

Blinking Christmas Lights

It's almost six AM,
the day after Christmas
and I miss what once was.
I used to have such expectation
a growing excitement
and wonder about a day
full of getting,
close hugs
and walking across a field
that is now full of brown vines and death.

I lay here in this bed,
my eyes catch the glimmer of light
of a passing time
maybe of a life
that never was
or never could be.

I used to be so young,
so small,
naive and hopeful about this world.

I saw through the lenses of a story
of good fighting evil,
of raising a sword
and casting spell
to beat back the relentless night
and all of her hordes.

Before my heart closed
and began its decay
into this twisted,
dark and fetid thing
there was this capacity for love
and wanting to share the adventure.
I was naive and stupid
not caring about others thoughts
but soon,
soon I learned to be afraid.
That people were cruel,
dark, blind and willfully stupid
and the monsters were not under the bed
but just down the hall.

I look at my world,
this small strip of land
and I know I am loved,
so blessed
and wanted around.

But still,
I struggle to see reality
and see the point of life
that is beyond these artificial lights
and this God awful poetry.

I pray,
I have begged God
to close my heart
and harden it against this world.
So I would never feel affection,
feel attraction
or want to be loved
or stupidly consider opening myself
to just being used,
ripped apart
and have my insides gayfully displayed
just so a girl might giggle
and add another check mark.

But this stupid heart refuses to cooperate
and instead,
look at me,
born loser and bastard extraordinaire
who paints with shades of pain
such pitiful portraits
and yet the feelings remain.

I do not want them,
I am too weak
and cannot carry this.

Sure,
You know best
but
why must it hurt so much?

I blink my eyes,
the pain remains
and I fall further
and farther
down this rabbit hole,
falling head over heels
into this darkness.
I feel the claws ripping my skin
and I just wish it could be something else,
nothing but truth
but hope that even with my self hate
I might grow to hope
and maybe
just maybe
this battle was not a waste.

Why must I feel?
Care when I'm not wanted?
Give when it's nothing worthwhile
and nothing worth remembering?

Why do I feel this?
Why do they flutter in my chest
touching my heart
and pulling my soul?
I am much too tired
and too weak,
unable to make this trip.

Call it off,
just let it die inside of me
instead of a prolonged death to self
which will be decades in the making.

Hope
that none of these prayers are heard
and if they are,
it is seen as the ramblings of a sick man
and maybe a healing,
some process
might just dare to begin.

Saturday, December 25, 2010

Things are so pleasant...and good here...it's actually a bit disconcerting.

o_O

Friday, December 24, 2010

So This is Christmas

Somehow I managed to go almost the entire month of December without hearing the phrase "War on Christmas" and that makes me happy. Happily hopeful that instead of wasting precious words and time on grand conspiracies about how the liberals are coming to eat our children...that maybe some Christians have found real battles worth fighting.

Not wars of words of ideologies, partisan politics or agendas...but the fight to give water to those who thirst. Living water to quench their physical and spiritual thirsts.

I am a hopeful cynic and realize how much of a contradiction that is.
It can be hard for me to get into a church Christmas spirit not just because of how anachronistic the holiday is...but with how shallow the holiday and how shallow we all can be.

Despite my feelings of guilt whenever I am given something, I don't think it's wrong to give or receive presents...but at the same time I have trouble reconciling all of these millions of dollars being spent on what amounts to a large pile of things that will break, rust and become useless.

All of that money being spent when there are so many people suffering.

I'm not trying to step on the toes of those wanting to be festive or celebrating...but sometimes it's just not enough for me to offer prayers for people starving to death, for junkies dying in the gutters of major cities, for people who have their dignity and human rights stripped of them because of being born in the wrong place and time.

I don't write these words just to try making people feel guilty...but I have these thoughts and feel the need to write them, to maybe connect with other like minded people...that maybe there is something bigger than us that makes life worth living and fighting for. I can't be ashamed of my convictions, how silly it is for me to stand around professing my weakness and how a God that seems to be invisible is the reason I am here at all.

Christmas, this celebration of the ludicrous notion of God coming to earth in the form of man, should not just be a time of rejoicing but a time of sobriety to realize how blessed we are and how that blessing can be taken and given to those with nothing.

I've mostly gotten rid of the hubris that demanded I try to single handedly change the world but instead I can settle for changing the world of a person or several people.

When I stop to think about how insane my faith must sound to those who have never felt the moving of the Holy Spirit, of feeling the weight of sin and guilt removed and being able to start again...I don't even know if it is possible to ever explain it...except by showing it in how I love.

The Gospel feels so impossible, so incredibly out of place and to my knowledge there really is no other faith than Christianity that speaks of God not just loving but chasing after his wayward children. It seems the Lord takes delight in finding "impossible" cases, the social outcasts, the shy, the despised and hated...and using them to be his hands, his feet and a voice of light in this world.

The date, the exact time and location of where Jesus was born doesn't matter, what matters the most is that He is. Somehow, someway, this impossible faith worked its way into my heart and I can safely say that any good, anything worthwhile coming out of me is because of being loved and being made lovable.

That is Christmas, that is faith, that is heaven...impossible, never ending love from a God I do not and will never understand...and I am okay with that.
If I could define or explain God then he would not be God, just another idol or fake Jesus that was invented to make my life easier.

I don't want a God who is a tyrant or a God who refuses to care about sins. I cannot pretend to follow a commercialized Jesus who is nothing more than a wise sage or prophet. It has to be the impossible idea of God coming in the form of man, this absurd and impossible beauty is what I have to follow, have to chase after.
A God that chases me when I have given up and try to run away.
A God who has carried me through all of these chasms, these pains...everything I fear and somehow, someway I am still here.

It's a hope that this meaning of Christmas becomes as real to you as it has to me.
Not just words, not just songs and not even warm and fuzzy feelings.
But the truth that you are never alone, never unloved and that you are beautiful in the way you were made.






"Crawling out from the wreckage of all that I've been taught
I'm leaving it behind
They fling their venom out at me when I resign
Outside the gates I drag myself into a world bigger than I had believed
And inside they flay their sheep lest they follow me and leave

But after everything I've done and everything I do
I can still remember you

Lines in my hands, light through the walls
I'm writing you letters with my prayers
After all that I've stood up falls
And I afford you none of my cares
If I ask you "what is truth" will you be silent still?
My questions and doubts made a chasm
That I fear you can not fill

Perhaps the lens I've eyed you through
Keeps me from knowing what is truth
I can't find what I'm looking for
And I still remember you

When I relent the shackles of all that I've been fed
I pull back the floor and find something beautiful instead

After everything That I've been through
I don't recognize myself anymore
Sometimes I think I might remember
But then I close the door

I walk away from everything and find myself made free
In all the tangles of who I am the truth is that you love me
Just as I was, just as I am, just as I will be
In all the tangles of who I am, the truth is that you love me"
-Showbread, "The Heart is Deceitful Above all Things"
Bah.
Deadspace.
As in this blog.
Not the horrible game.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

The Year of Doing Big, Fun and Scary Things

For those who might have missed out on the rather tame party I threw for myself in celebration of my fourth National Novel Writing Month win...I won National Novel Writing Month for the fourth time.

Wow.
That was excruciatingly repetitive.

The lovely nut jobs who run Nanowrimo host an event in December called "The Year of Doing Big, Fun, Scary Things", which is a bit like making New Years Resolutions.

The logic is that since you (as in I, the writer) have accomplished the awesome if just a tad stupid goal of writing a first draft in a month, why stop there?

For various reasons I have neglected to do this in my four years of Nanowrimoing for one reason or another...but I think this is going to be the year where I am going to draw some lines in the sand.

Well, not so much as lines as vague guidelines I can post on my wall and feel guilty about for ignoring....because guilt is important in accomplishing anything. If it were not for guilt (or maybe just humanity's tendency for masochism) we as a global community would not have to suffer with taxes, parliamentary procedures and rap music.

That said, here are some ideas of what I want to accomplish in year of 2011:

1.Figure out exactly when I am going to be graduating with my Masters. I have been working off and on since around 2007 (I think...or was it 2008?) and although I did pick up Theater as a minor I should try to figure out what year and semester I'll be graduating in and get set up for the classes as far in advance as possible.

2.Attempt to find a church but in the mean time at least go somewhere so I will be a bit less isolated and possibly find others I am on the same spiritual/religious wavelength as.

3.I have yet to put any serious thought into revising any of my novels. I will daydream about being published, conducting interviews where I show off a winning smile, my witty retorts and my utter lack of fashion...however unless I actually bother to revise a novel there really won't be much of a reason to celebrate something that doesn't happen.

4.I want to produce two short pieces a month. Of these two I want to write one article and one short story. I have endless pages of story but I really want to try making myself do a shorter term project so I have less chance of burning out.

5.Despite any health conditions I am determined to become better at swing dancing.

6.Take the time to go for a stroll when it is raining.

7.Learn how to open myself up for moments during the day when it feels things are falling apart and make myself remember that Father is in control and if my work is going nowhere that could mean I am needed elsewhere.

8.Find real and tangible ways to show love to everyone I am around. Family, friends, roommates...not just the cheesy and fake smiles...but taking genuine interest in those around me.

9.Go to the beach at night and stay until sunrise. Watch the beauty and remember it until the day I die.

10.Work on learning how to let go out bad experiences and the pain of the past so I can be free to smile and not just paste on the emotions I expect people are expecting me to wear.

11.Since I'll be turning 25 in July I need to figure out what exactly I am supposed to be doing. I have yet to hear an explanation as to what this whole "mid-twenties" thing was supposed to be about...that alone seems like it would be an adventure.



Sort of like novel writing, the only person who I am responsible to this list is myself and as much interest as you, faithful reader will exhibit. If you think of it feel free to ask me how progress is going...or as the case may be, distract me into looking the other way and give me a loving shove off into the depths of living life.

It should be an interesting year to say the least.

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Today has been a good day to practice my mad laughter.

Oievay.

Friday, December 17, 2010

Seeing the smile is absolutely priceless.

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Slight Redundancy May Apply

I don't know if that is naive innocence or just the disturbed attempts of someone so screwed up in the head trying to mess with me.

Either way it is starting to annoy me to no end.

However, however...I smile.
I choose to smile in the face of insanity, in the face of this world decaying and falling apart.

I have ever reason to despair.
To lay down.
To cry.
To just give up and die.

Yet I choose to smile.
In this darkness I smile.
I refuse to lay down.
I refuse to fade, loose my shape and become a Shade.

Who is this?
What is that noise?
Whose voice is this?

I almost feel obligated to lie,
speak sweet nothings
whisper them
across this vast electronic ocean
but I have lost my place,
lost my voice.

I do not know why I write
or who even reads.

I always had a target,
that One
but I am finding,
refining
and trying to see why
and how
with all of this
shred of life I live.

Does it make sense?
Do the thoughts flow
and does the hope escape
like breath
on a cold night
forming vivid mist
as it dissipates?

I can give so many stories,
so many ways
and so many times I smiled
during this semester.

So many smiles,
so much pain
and a limp across time and space.

I can whisper names
of those
occupying the past
my present
and maybe a future
that may or may never be.

All subjective,
such pain
whispering
and just longing
to break out
and run free,
to never look back
but feel the sun
and fresh breezes
once and for all again.

Everything has it's appointed time and place, just I wish I could better understand the how's and why's because of how tired I am. Too tired for games, too tired to keep up with all these kids running around these days.

I want a cup of tea and a soft pillow.
I want a good book and a heating pad for my back.
A walking stick to lean upon and a gentle breeze on my face.
Somehow I dramatically aged, so fast.
But I am still just me.
The kid looking into eternity with hope.
Refusing to back down.
Now is the moment.

Even if I live an eternity with nothing but hearing no and failures.
I will smile.
I will smile and still continue.

Not out of spite.
Not out of a desire of pain.
But a hope that I can find the ones I can trust.
Build that hope and support.
It's worth the fight and pain.
So few things are.
But that certainly is.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

So...so...

Bah.


*passes out*

Sunday, December 12, 2010

So silly...so silly to trust.
Yet I do.

Lines in the Dirt

Small lines,
falling branches
and tiny sticks;
carving earth
as an etching,
just these lines in the dirt
following the path.

Here today
soon erased by time
but the feature
running along
trapped in frame
and mind,
just a small adventure
of yours and mine.


***
*****
***


Sticks and lines
obscured by time,
running still
and falling
across the shadow of today.
It feels...as though my soul is that of a cowards.

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Nausea, chills, a fever, guilt and worry.

Just another day in the life, neh?

Friday, December 10, 2010

"I'm becoming less defined as days go by
Fading away
And well you might say
I'm losing focus
Kinda drifting into the abstract in terms of how I see myself

Sometimes I think I can see right through myself"

In and Out

Such, such, such
vast
and varied
empty, rising skyscrapers
inside my mind,
just
these somber burning vigils,
of a time gone by
and whispers on the wind
carried to the depths
of whatever lays
at the bottom of my soul.

I feel torn apart on the inside,
pulled and drawn
in every direction,
every manner
and every means
all at once,
faster and faster.

Spiraling baby,
just out of control
another day
another job
what more can I say?

Falling under the title
of just a bit of self destruct,
I suppose it's normal
but then again
what is?

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Hmm...some sort of story idea...a book actually called "Chapter One" in which the story never actually progresses beyond the first chapter...the entire book is the struggle to get beyond the first chapter itself...and yet there is consistent failure to do so.

I know there is no way that is actually an original idea...I just need to figure out who already did that so I can shake my fist angrily at them.
All things considered...I suppose life really isn't so bad.
Quite wonderful actually.
Even with a headache at 3AM.

Wooo.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Bah.
I hate being an indecisive jerk.

Sunday, December 5, 2010

The sad thing is I cannot even begin to trust my intentions.

I look in the mirror and see the person no one else does...I'm damned to live with the dark side of me which can never be exposed...small shards and fragments appear...but the real me...

It just cannot be known.

Bah, I feel like I am just waking in circles...and to a large degree I am...because I am not sure how to even begin to make sense of so much of this life.

Emotions, feelings, memories...so much, so little, so late to be shared and shown...

At least if I bite my tongue and reveal nothing...at least some pain can be prevented...and that is what it seems my job has become...prevention.

Ironic, isn't it?

Saturday, December 4, 2010

All doubts and existential quandaries aside...home is home...
Some measure of normality for once is a God send.
More ways than one really...
Sometimes I feel like such a stranger...

So tired and so freaking nauseated...hopefully it'll pass soon.

Goodnight, goodnight and goodnight...
Meh.

I guess I did feel a little left out...but what is the point of such silly emotions?

Instead...sleep, tomorrow I must drive and think.

So many paths, so many roads...where do they all lead?

What's in a Novel?

I seriously cannot believe November is already over.

Considering all of the school work, health issues, school obligations, having three people join (and another four people express interest) in the classic Deadlands game I've been running and writing the first draft of my fourth novel...all of it just flew by ever so quickly.

More than once I have had people question my sanity over not just the task of writing a fifty thousand word first draft in just a month but writing a novel at all, much less the fact this was my fourth time to take part in Nanowrimo.

I have four rough novels on my hard drive, something that adds up to being somewhere between 220,000 and 250,000 words of fiction.

That I, Matt Pike, wrote.

I feel some context, some explanation for all this madness is in order:


I. My first venture into the NANOWRIMO madness was back in 2007 and I wrote an incredibly awkward fantasy novel set in modern America about a group of hapless fools who had the misfortune of being chosen to save the world. I plagiarized the personalities of several close friends at the time, the narration style of Douglas Adams and the plot of most every console RPG to be released in the past decade.

The basic story followed a group of teenagers/early twenty somethings who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and had a Guardian (think angelic warrior type wielding a katana) who was commissioned to find the chosen ones and lead them on a quest to prevent an ancient evil from being unleashed onto the world.

Being unfortunate to have me as the writer means their quest was for nougat because they all were screwed over in the end by the leader of the organization who was supposed to be stopping this madness. Their quest lead them to bringing a relic to a holy site that ripped a hole open in the fabric and time and space, causing a spiritual barrier to be removed and in a literal sense all of Hell broke loose upon the world and the heroes were caught in the vortex.

Considering my incredibly lack of skills of narration and writing it is at least a somewhat redeemable work.



II. My second novel during the 2008 novel season was written as a direct sequel to the first book (neither of which have names yet) and continued the groups misadventures as they had been trapped on an alien world and were trying to return hope to stop everything they loved from being wiped out.

I was going through a rather dark phase so the black humor aspect was played up quite a bit and although I broke the 50k mark there really was no real ending and I was at a lost to what I should write.



III. Then came my third novel which became a stereotypical high fantasy novel with a stereotypical unpronounceable name, "The Twilight of Sin'ai" and I took a lot of influence from both "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Dark Tower Series".

In my mind "Sin'ai" takes places in the same universe as the first two novels but was a prequel of sorts showing a grand spiritual battle taking among the stars and that the Earth was insulated from the horrors of it all.

A race of fallen beings called The Dark (original, I know) are these beings who have been stripped of all emotion and rational thought, they are like a virus that simply consumes and steals the bodies of people and creatures and take their form but are merely a twisted and perverse caricature of what once was.

The main group of heroes are fighting a loosing war to protect their realm and have to chase a mysterious man in dark and crimson colored robes who has stolen an artifact which if used can open a portal and allow the Dark free reign to consume this doomed world.

It is quite possible that I was going through a really dark time of my life because without intending to there is a lot of fatalism and nihilistic themes, more so than this years novel which was the intended focus.



IV.This brings us to this year, 2010 and my novel which was lovingly dubbed "The Downward Spiral". A lot of my essays on spirituality draw their names from song titles so it made sense to me that this book would be named after one of the albums I listened to most during the writing process.

The original goal for this novel was to construct a storyline and plot which could be both a stand alone story as well as provide the content for a campaign for the "Call of Cthulhu Campaign". I drew from several sources, most notably H.P. Lovecraft, Steven King, Franz Kafka and Flannery O'Connor.

I wanted to take some unfortunate every day people and throw them into these horrible and impossible situations where the best they could hope is to last just a few minutes longer as the barrier of what is possible/impossible gets ripped down and they feel their sanity being ripped from their being. A lot of the essences was that they were shown the edge of the world and looked over to see this overwhelmingly impossible void that they looked into and saw something coming for them out of the darkness.

I consciously made the choice to pick a genre I have avoided, that of supernatural horror. I also tried to let the content flow as organically as it could and so there is a good amount of dark content so that I would label the books as being PG-13 if not R rated. I did not set out to try and offend people by having characters that swore, had sexual thoughts or were in danger of dying but in order to be true to the story I had to tell what I was saying.

To a degree I still do not know what the ending of this book is, I had a few scenes in my head and did the best I could to connect all of them into some sort of coherent order and considering how little experience I have in this genre...I think it came out well.

There were several points where I considered just scrapping the project and try to stick to something familiar but then I came across this utterly amazing quote:


"The writer who emphasizes spiritual values is very likely to take the darkest view of all of what he sees in this country today. For him, the fact that we are the most powerful and wealthiest nation in the world doesn't mean a thing in any positive sense. The sharper the light of faith, the more glaring are apt to be the distortions the writer sees in the life around him... My own feeling is that writers who see by the light of their Christian faith will have, in these times, the sharpest eyes for the grotesque, for the perverse, and for the unacceptable... The novelist with Christian concerns will find in modern life distortions which are repugnant to him, and his problem will be to make these appear as distortions to an audience which is used to seeing them as natural."
-Flannery O'Connor


This quote sort of smacked me in the face with not just inspiration but this obligation, this need to avoid the intellectual and creative ghetto that exists within the American Christian bubble.

I do not read much Christian fiction because I find both genres to be hopelessly dull, contrived, predictable and full of more Deus ex Machina's than you could hit with a dead Greek playwright.

There are good intentions in trying to shelter people from themes and ideas that might be too much for them, however it should be pointed out that if the entire Bible was adapted it would be rated X because in Genesis alone you have sexy, murder, incest, extortion, lying, drunk people stumbling around, God killing the majority of the population and nuking a couple of cities.

To say that one can read about these things in the Bible and that they are topics in faction that are taboo is a double standard that helps no one.

I have no illusion of ever having any of my books in Lifeway or the other chain Christian bookstores because I have little interest or desire to write feel good, mushy, lovey-dovey let's all hold hands and sing songs while pretending that only "sinners" and "bad" people experience bad things in life.

I suppose me saying that is a wee bit pretentious but I am okay with that.

At the end of the day the best any of us can do is pray, hope and trust that we can follow the convictions and desires God has placed in our hearts.



To me those convictions are:

1.No comprising or censoring of the works I write.
2.That I need to be as painfully honest and open about my struggles because too many Christians hide their scars and pretend everything is perfect when this world is broken. Any fool can see that and I refuse to put my head in the sand just to make people feel good about their complacency.
3.I was given this ability to write and until the day I die I am going to keep writing, keep revising and tell the stories I most want to hear because there are those who need to hear them just as badly as I do.
4.Temet nosce, the unexamined life is not worth living and to write I have to live, fail, learn and grow.
5.Bake more brownies and give out more hugs.

Friday, December 3, 2010

"Your eyes
Are always there
Your eyes
Are what I came for

Your eyes
Drive away my fear
Your eyes
I could just stand there and adore

Stop just right there
Everything has to stop to steal time
For whom I want to be near
Yes I do care and I love the love we share

And I know You're alive
I'll give my heart to survive
This world has nothing to offer a human soul
Reaching for the sky
So Father of light
Keep this human spirit alive"
I feel a bit like curling up into a ball because of the pain.

Ick.
Ack.
Bleh.

In a way it would be nice to go out and do something...but I just feel too tired, too dizzy and really just too sick to put forth the effort it would take to accomplish that.

Oh well.
In other news:

Wheee...
A bit silly how such small things can act as a relief.

Yes.

Silly indeed.
I find it infinitely amazing how in attempting to do the right thing I sabotage myself and end up preventing things I would have rather liked.

Lousy morals and such.

*sigh*

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Furthermore, I would at least like to think I have a high tolerance and would help anyone...but I am just getting to the point where I am too tired to deal with certain people.

It is amazing how certain people lack tact.
Or compassion for that matter.
Is it really so hard for people to have manners?
Will it be the skin off your bloody teeth if you close your mouth while eating?
Blargh.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

If I didn't know better I would think that certain people are going out of their way to try and to my ever growing pile of pure confusion.
I have to wonder how much is too much.
What will cause me to loose and become lost in all this contradictory nonsense.

Hope lives.
Burns and struggles.
Gasps for breath.
But lives.

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Quote of the Day:

“Humankind cannot bear very much reality.”
-T.S. Eliot
When you were here before
Couldn't look you in the eye
You're just like an angel
Your skin makes me cry
You float like a feather
In a beautiful world
I wish I was special
You're so fucking special

But I'm a creep
I'm a weirdo
What the hell am I doing here?
I don't belong here

I don't care if it hurts
I want to have control
I want a perfect body
I want a perfect soul
I want you to notice when I'm not around
You're so fucking special
I wish I was special

But I'm a creep
I'm a weirdo
What the hell I'm doing here?
I don't belong here

She's running out the door
She's running out
She runs runs runs

Whatever makes you happy
Whatever you want
You're so fucking special
I wish I was special

But I'm a creep
I'm a weirdo
What the hell am I doing here?
I don't belong here
I don't belong here

Pain and the Frail Gifts from a Forked Tongue

If feelings can be ripped, torn and destroyed
then why do they persist to nag my heart?
Such lies, such pain, such frailty of conviction
and I morn this loss?

A fool and bastard I am,
of every sense
cut off and rejected,
thrown back to the pile of filth
and hate that courses through my veins.

Do you see this blood,
the sins of my past
passing and moving in shadows
crying out to I,
a cry that I should cut
and let blood pour
staining this grass
that has been my bed
in these stages of delirium.

Do you know hast?
Do you know hate?
Frailty that reeks
of a stench of rottenness
that all I ever was told
were mere lies,
pleasing to the speaker
and knives which rake upon my heart,
such a dark and deprave coal
that is no thing more than I.

Do you see this tripe,
this disgusting
verbose vomit?

I am but a creep
such a lowly insect
with a festering wound
just out of my reach.

Can I blame a nymph
for her sins
of being as she is?

Tis unbecoming of a man
to blame problems on others
when the problem was me
and all I can say is I will stand
and might die with dignity,
dignity that left the house of my father
and here I am.

Blood that is mud in my veins
and horror upon horror,
I know not the story
nor can I handle it.

I wish to be more, be more than I am
but it is nothing you will see
for my heart is closed.
This demon seed has been planted
and it crystallizes
and become a diamond.

Rough, hard, unbreakable
for your tendrils have grown deep
and all that I pull
makes the pain worse
and soon you will have a marker
if you care to dance upon
the tomb that will hold
these rotting bones.

Hold a mirror up
maybe hold it close
to see the bones under the makeup
and hollow the promises of a woman are made
such vain lies
I ate and dined on
for I believe the impossible
forgetting that fantasy
will never be reality.

Trust,
faith,
honor,
respect
such laughable terms
amounting to nothing more
than diarrhea of the mouth,
such a revolting pile of shit
that I only have myself to blame for.

I crushed and destroyed bridges
just for something that was a lie.

Bitter?
I?
Nay, just one whose virgin eyes
were ripped open
by the gaping hole in my soul
and for daring
to open my heart to such fables,
such indiscriminate lies.

Look closely,
count the vowels
and see the pain in every symbol
every frail postulate
as it may be my last.

These words must burn,
must face the fire of correction
for the only fool as me
in and out
in and out
and soon to say goodbye.

Do not blink
for you may miss my exit,
crashing and burning
and unable to cope
with how harsh reality is
and shall ever and forever be.

It is, it is.
Thank you for it,
thank you for the pain
because I feel grace
where I would not have.
You ripped me apart
calling my life sin
and demonstrating
every fault
and every sin
making me see
and feel why humanity
should be purged,
ripped from our place.

Why such games?
Such a Divine Madman
holds back
not destroying us
and yet here we are.

Goodnight, good bye
and fare well.
Do not let the door hit you
as you leave
and know there is no return
and never a second chance.

This heart is closed.
A diamond forged
from the pressures and pain.
See the caricature you created
but do not touch the strings,
they are nothing more
than rusted barb wire,
created in the tumble and fall from grace
and rusted from the bitter hot tears
I was told to never share.

Good riddance to a waste of space,
farewell to my ocuping this pain.
I do not want this
and refuse to carry it any more.

Shadow boxing
and fighting my own shadow
because I am who I am.

I can handle being single
because I have to.
I refuse to lead others on
and crush them and treat them
as play things
just to increase my self worth
and because I can stand the silence.

Having my dad and grandmother
ripped from me
by distance, disease and death
just made me darker
made me more silent
and forced me to abandon the lie
that the good people get rewarded.

We will stand, fight
and die horrible deaths.
Not for a stupid gold road
or mansions
but to be held and have our tears wiped away
by one bigger
so much more beautiful than you can know.

Pain is what opens the path to God,
sin costs blood
and I would bleed all of mine now
just to be closer
to feel the love I scarcley believe is true.

Maybe in several thousand years
of healing
of pergutory
and grace making me new
I can look in your eyes and not feel pain,
not see the rejection
and contempt for the bastard I am.

Goodnight,
farewell,
let the pain be as it will be
for I am who I am.

Broken, bloodied and dying
but more alive now
than I ever was.

Monday, November 29, 2010

I think I enjoy writing and playing villains because it allows me to tap into a really dark side of myself that I normally do everything I can to avoid showing or being a part of.

However...mad genius is at work here...

Quote of the Day:

"Fanaticism consists of redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim."
—George Santayana

Sunday, November 28, 2010

"the farther I fall I'm beside you
as lost as I get I will find you
the deeper the wound I'm inside you
for ever and ever I'm a part of

you and me
we're in this together now
none of them can stop us now
we will make it through somehow
you and me
if the world should break in two
until the very end of me
until the very end of you

all that we were is gone we have to hold on
when all our hope is gone we have to hold on
all that we were is gone but we can hold on

you and me
we're in this together now
none of them can stop us now
we will make it through somehow
you and me
even after everything
you're the queen and I'm the king
nothing else means anything"
Yes.

I am that guy who will go do something or get something at 2am, 11pm of any other absurd when I already have a half million things to do.

I'll even do it without so much as a thanks.

Just because of love.

I want to learn how to love even those I do not know...those whom I hate with that passion...but even more so, the same passion God has for the lost sheep and the ones who have become wolves and preying on other sheep.

Even if it means taking a Shepard's staff and striking to protect the innocent and those being preyed upon.

I want to show love that is beyond my capacities and beyond my beliefs and is straight from the lips of Christ.
Why is it so easy to be angry...bitter, jealous...feeling these rush of beings at once.

There is good, wonderful and beautiful things in life...

It is just hard to see things from before...with a more naive approach.

I suppose the trick is learning to not trust, trying to give everything in the right manner to find an ace to keep up your sleeve...

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Time to mentally check out of reality to do some serious writing...
Certain people...yeah...certain people.

Being alive is nice though.
Woo.
So much joy and apathy spun into one day...

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Quote of the Day:

"No, no, no way, Reinette Poisson? Later Madame D'Etoiles, later still mistress of Louis XV, uncrowned Queen of France? Actress, artist, musician, dancer, courtesan. Fantastic gardener! ...I'm the Doctor, and I just snogged Madame de Pompadour!"
-The Doctor

Sunday, November 21, 2010

*Brain explodes*
After both playing and running tabletop games for over a decade this comic made me laugh and cringe just because of how often scenarios like this actually arise:

http://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0098.html

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Quote of the Day:

"Grand Viziers were always scheming megalomaniacs. It was probably in the job description: 'Are you a devious, plotting, unreliable madman? Ah, good, then you can be my most trusted advisor.'"
—Terry Pratchett
It is sort of morbidly humorous to see people throw God around as being the cosmic cause for their incredibly idiotic effects.

I suppose there is always someone else to blame...what good would taking personal responsibility do anyway...right?

Part Time Messiah

I really thought I said I was done with this gig.

I drew a line, marked it out and said "No more. No more trying to carry the world, much less any of its stupid little apes that managed to get themselves in trouble and decide to come crying to me."

After all, what can I do?

I can barely contain the insanity swirling in and out of my soul...emotions, thoughts, feelings, chemical reactions, physical actions...insanity day in and day out...so what can I do?

I do not care.

I have tried to do everything and have ended up doing nothing...I am not writing the world off but I am writing the parasites away.

I willingly bleed my soul out to people who are not even worth my trust...so why should I whore my time, soul, sanity and well being just to hear someone bitch and moan about how terrible their life is?

I am human.
I am a sinner.
I, for reasons beyond my understanding, am a sinner saved by grace.

But by no stretch of the imagination does that make me perfect, some sort of all knowing guru who is going to sacrifice his well being for the greater good.

I am no one's hero.
I am barely ranking as an antihero.
I would fit much more comfortable in the ranks of being an apathetic villain.

And yet Jesus calls to me to lay down my arms, lay down my pain, my rage, my anger...my everything and follow...to where?

I do not know.
I do not know so much...and yet the love, the grace, forgiveness...so many things I take for granted, I forget, I throw back into the heavens when I just stop caring and break down...

I am loved.
Even when I am enraged and unlovable, when I do not show grace and I hurt people's feelings...when I back stab them and then I narcotize myself with apathy, uncaring and abject ed hated.

Even when I do not know what to do and I fail.
I am loved, love so dearly, chased after and longed for by some sort of Divine Madman that really should know when to quit...but He never has.

I'll never know why.

But that is okay.

I am loved.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Quote of the Day:

"That old saw about 'to understand all is to forgive all' is a lot of tripe. Some things, the more you understand the more you loathe them."
-Robert A. Heinlein

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

With all of my complaining, whining and general negativity...there is so much horror, so much pain in this world that my problems are reduced to the insignificant little nothings they really are.

Seeing, hearing, feeling the pain running through the eyes and souls...

And I realize that I do not know how to pray.

Millstones for Sell

The chords around my neck
are starting to choke
wrapping tight
and cutting me off
from whatever else is in this world.

The absence in me
is this gaping hole
this want to be loved
and maybe just accepted
but
I'm not sure it ever mattered
because
if I was loved
would there be this gap
from where you left?

It feel so stupid
to pray
and write letters
so someone so far gone
that I do not think
and maybe I even know
I will never see again.

Why speak of fair
and cry out in pain
to a God
who only seems
to move
only as needed...

My faith may be weak
and bloodied
with so many broken bones
but hope still prevails
moving within me.

I don't have words
and I never will,
no one can understand
nor want to feel
this void
that ever is a part of me.

Maybe in the next Age
the healing will come,
every tear will be wiped away
and the screaming pain
may just subside.

Until then I will walk the shadows,
moving in and out life
as I look,
pray for hope
and falter in step.
The exceptionally sad thing is that the person who actually bothers to believe my lies is me.

Yeah.

Sad.

Quote of the Day:

"...but the cruelest thing you can do to an artist is tell them their work is flawless when it isn't."
-Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

I just want to stop hurting.
Is that too much to ask?

Faith and hope are bone weary, running out and so tired.

Does it matter?

So many questions, too much time and so much exhaustion.

Hope is there, just too tired and too weak to move.
Sunday was one of the most peaceful evening I have had in months..if not years.
Even just with watching Doctor Who, it was nice to feel apart of something more real that may last word may be the more illinoformed

Quote of the Day:

"The religious persecution of the ages has been done under what was claimed to be the command of God. I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do to their fellows, because it always coincides with their own desires."
-Susan B. Anthony


http://www.thelizlibrary.org/undelete/library/library005.html

Monday, November 15, 2010

God...please give me relief from the pain and nausea...please...

Another, Another

So far...and yet so close.
The foolish rhymes of yesterday
falling out of sync.

An evening amongst familiar company
and it is curious
how the simple
and what many call mundane
is what helps me hang on.

Laughter, embraces
and even a hand holding a hand
all just are milestones
mixed with grace
on this long
and convoluted journey.

It is so hard
just to recall
what it was
that started
me on this trip
and finding my way
back to this school.

I struggle to believe in love
and the fading hope
that love still believes in me.

I was able to impart
and give some comfort
providing some security.
Just another fleeting moment
but one of the few moments of grace
in this year of Hell.

I have already lost so much
and yet
I know the worst is to come.
It may be cowardly to run
but I would flee
in order to preserve
if not just outright protect
those who suffer because of me.

Fleeting
just passing by
the waves rolling on
and pulling at me
summoning me to dive
and never return to the surface.

Just another passing moment
on this time of life,
shades and shadows,
passing and fleeting
and watching the sun spiral
into its everlasting decay.

I am.
I am.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Evidently I am so exhausted right now that I was able to read some comments in German and it made perfect sense.

Which is awesome considering I have absolutely no working knowledge of German.

Lovable Loser Syndrome

These people do not want truth.
They want to be coddled and patted on the back.
They want reassurance that the screams of the dying and damned outside their door is just a radio stuck on static.

Compassion and empathy are dirty words whereas complacency, self-righteousness and pleasure are their drugs of choice.

I would rather be living in this pain, feeling the screams of pain rip through my nerve cells and die trying to change the world...then lay here in numb apathy.

I may loose every relationship, every friendship...every companion may prove to be unfaithful, untrustworthy and keen to stab me in the back...but if I can simply die having been faithful to the call I can ask for nothing more.

If need be I will find solace in You alone.
If I loose all of these and must limp and crawl alone this stretched path...I will.

I have lost everything and felt my soul rip apart several times already...it just eventually gets to a point where I no longer give a damn about being loved by people. I am an attention starved person who will perform simply to have some iota of confidence build up...but at the end of the day it's not worth it...nothing in this world is worth the sacrifice and the pain.

God, the pain.
It will come and go.
I will handle it as I must.
Luckily I do not star as a hero or main character.
I will never have my face on a poster or an action figure in my image.

Just as well.
There are no heroes.
All humans do is fail and create more problems.
Problems that cause pain.
Problems that someone has to fix.

Such a painful paradox.
So frustratingly stupid to pine after someone who sees you but looks through you.
If anything that is worse than being ignored.
At least when you do not exist at all to that person you can at least dream that one day they may see you...but to be looked through and seen as nothing more than a lovable loser who somehow just never manages to "make it" well...I can simply say I do not care.

What is the point of wasted breath?
Why do I feel the need to waste air?
What more can I expect or ask out of these people?

None of us are born without some purpose, some role in this story.
However none of us are assured as to what that is.

I am not one made to be able to love and love back.
What is the absolute point?
Love, marriage, family...silly things never meant for me.
I try but my heart is growing colder and deader with each day.
I feel less, my compassion is fading and my empathy is in chaotic decay.

I focus on myself so much...to my own determent.
The decay, the pain...all so real and vivid...

I don't know the future.
I do not need to know it.
Maybe something will change...maybe I will learn to feel again and open my heart up...but I would just as soon let it grow cold and at least be able to support and hold someone...something up...while the rest of me just falls apart.

At least I might be able to act as a stonewall.
That has to count for something.

Quote of the Day:

“Nothing is more revolting than the majority; for it consists of few vigorous predecessors, of knaves who accommodate themselves, of weak people who assimilate themselves, and the mass that toddles after them without knowing in the least what it wants”
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Pointlessly stupid angry rage.
Yay.

Where did I leave my sarcasm button?

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Quote of the Day:

"Forgiveness means it finally becomes unimportant that you hit back."
-Anne Lamott
Thank you Jesus, thank you for my friends who are acting as anchors and propping me up because of how hard it is to move at times from the pain, how hard it is to function and just for helping me retain my sense of humor in the storms.

The paradox is that when I am in the worst pain...you find me here and carry me, letting the prayers of all those who came before...this family of saints that all of these ones who mean so much to me are in...with divisions, pain and trials...we are closer than human blood...we're bound by the blood of you my Love, my Lord.

Friday, November 12, 2010

I really could do without the whole pain thing for a day or two...
It is sort of amazing how some people are so proficient at casting others to the side.

I wonder how often I have done that without realizing...hurt people, hurt their feelings, made them feel rejected, made them feel worthless...

So much is going on so often and there is so little time in which to act or try to decide what the right thing to do is...

Quote of the Day:

"There's no point being grown-up if you can't be childish sometimes."
-The Doctor

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Is finally, finally breaking the 12k word mark and only need around 7k more to catch up and be on schedule. He has no idea how the end product will be but is rather proud of how some of the plot and characters are turning out. This is definitely PG-13 bordering R rated material which is very much new territory for him to be working in...scary yet refreshing in ways that only novel writing can be.

Yay for third person.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

I forget how much other Christians can make my head hurt.

I just do not see a point for going overboard with "praise" this and "praise that"...I know it's not all insincere...in fact I would dare say the majority of it IS sincere...it is just "Christianese" that drives me mad.

What is the point of talking about faith when it never goes beyond a theory or a group of words loosely used to describe how a person wastes a perfectly good Sunday morning because it is nothing more than status or a feel good pat on their back?

I know letting other people's actions and thoughts interfere and control how I respond is not just unhealthy but stupid.

The good thing is that we're all on equal footing before God...we're all sinners, all broken and all in need of healing, acceptance and love...it's just learning to live those qualities out is so hard.
So tired, so far from home...far from any sense of relation.
I feel like a stranger.
An alien.
Disconnected from those who do not know of what I speak or what I have seen.

How can one begin to divulge the experience of feeling eternity flow through oneself?

So much more...

It is basic yet so deep, simple and yet so profound...God's love.
I have been browsing Deviantart trying to find pictures to inspire my writing for Nanowrimo and I keep getting drawn back to this picture. The guy looks a lot like how I envision my main character Jace looks like and of course he spends 95% of his time running from Eldritch abominations. ^_^

http://nintene.deviantart.com/favourites/#/d1d9j22

Quote of the Day:

"You write. That's the hard bit that nobody sees. You write on the good days and you write on the lousy days. Like a shark, you have to keep moving forward or you die. Writing may or may not be your salvation; it might or might not be your destiny. But that does not matter. What matters right now are the words, one after another. Find the next word. Write it down. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat."
-Neil Gaiman

On Lambs and Muses

Snow flakes falling,
building a castle to the sky
a tower to see from
watching as the world
flits and moving,
burning the roads and I know
it's just that I try
and find the means to fail.

I miss you.
I don't know who will listen
or know what it is like
to write a eulogy
and not know if you are heard.

What does it matter if any of these hear
when the only person I want to know
is on the other side of eternity?

Sometimes life feels like a sick joke,
everything we try
and the circles we run
when all I want to do is follow
and maybe see the one's I've lost.

My faith is so tired,
weary and needs rest,
the only kind
that may be found
in the meek lamb.

Little lamb
who called out to me
beckoning me to follow
when I was just a child,
fifteen years ago
you spoke
and I heard.
Ten years ago
you asked for the rest of me
and I complied.

Have we really been walking that long?
You have held me,
been so faithful
when I am so quick to despair and angst.

I just am worn down to my endings
just wanting to breath
and release all the pain,
all the tragedy
that has been held for so long.

Resolutions for questions
and things you will never tell me
but I still must ask,
Why?
Why the pain?
Why must we hurt?
How long,
how long until you come again
and end the pain?

Will I always walk alone,
being in a large crowd
but always isolated?

I miss you.
I don't know how to say it
and my clarity
feels just like lies.

I can't trust myself
and I am so quick to turn,
pointing fingers
and riding this pain
dragging it out
as long as I might.

I have no choice
and not a word
that can be spent on saying.

I have to live.
I'm needed
and when I can rest
is after going home.

But it doesn't ease the pain,
the pain of distance
the pain of loss
and how I always wonder
and my mind wanders
how thou doth fair?

But it is what it is,
so much confusion.
Beauty and pain
but every day renewed.
"a fool's devotion
swallowed up in empty space
the tears of regret
frozen to the side of his face

the smell of sunshine
I remember sometimes

I've done all I can do
could I please come with you?
sweet smell of sunshine
I remember sometimes"
I'm just not sure why I trust certain people.
Inevitability.
There is just...

I know I will be back stabbed or if I am lucky just ignored.
It happens, has happened...

Will happen.

It's annoying and depressing...

But I can try to enjoy the ride as best as I can, being a real man and a brother who watches out for and is there to protect his friends and his sisters.

Is it better to be ignored or reviled and rejected?
So tired.
So convoluted and just...I do not know.
I do not know.

I wish I could hide away and then no more...no more of this pain no more of these pointless and ridiculous circles I have to run in just to escape from...the further circles, and more senseless pain.

What is honor?
What is trust?
What is devotion?

So many broken friendships and forgotten times.
I just don't have the energy to care.


I had coffee and a night time drive, listening and being a wall of support and defense. Watching the orange lights spill across the roads, breaking shadows and across our words and songs.

Seeing the lights reflect off the bay and just enjoy the comfortable silence of someone I can trust...

But I still worry.
I know it will end.
Everything has to.
It's the nature of life.

So tired.

There is at least good that has happened...
Maybe more can before it ends.

Monday, November 8, 2010

So much to do so little time.

-Novel
-Notes for class
-Parts and rehearsal for Christmas Spectacular
-Learning lines from Hamlet and blocking the scene for class
-Lying on my desk in despair
-Drinking tea
-Going to World Market to get more tea
-Having more despair
-Laying on the ground twitching
-Writing plot for running another session of Deadlands
-Trying to eat the stuff the school calls "food"
-Doctor Who
-Poems
-Despair
-Sleep?
-Exercise
-Trying to thank God for tolerating my ever increasing boughts of stupidity
This managed to remind me how much I miss Conan O'Brian.
And for some reason I keep craving diet coke every time I watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baa-dGj2LhQ

Quote of the Day:

"Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives.”
-Oscar Wilde

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Things That go Bump in the Night

I have always had an interest in the dark and horror.

I believe the first movie with horror elements I saw that I latched onto was "Aliens" by James Cameron which was a sequel to the classic Ridley Scott film "Alien". Unlike the God-awful "Alien versus Predator" franchise which I believe is almost as bad if not actually worse than "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man", "Alien" explored the isolation of space, the horror of a parasitic alien that not just feeds off of humans but uses us as a means for incubating their young and had one of the few strong female roles in sci-fi that isn't overly sexual in Ellen Ripley (which also launched Sigourney Weaver's career into the limelight).

The movie "Aliens" took the premise established and introduced a large contingent of egotistical space marines who upheld the popular myth that everything can be fixed with technology and superior firepower just to have almost all of them systematically slaughtered by creatures who merely operated on basic instinct.

It is weird to think that something as simple as those ideas became a multi million dollar franchise that practically any self-respecting geek is at least somewhat familiar with.

Besides the idea of hostile aliens and government conspiracies (that love was grown by the likes of TV shows such as "The X-Files", "Torchwood" and the like)my next big love in the horror genre came about with my exposure to George A. Romero's "Dead" series. "Night of the Living Dead" both the 1968 and 1990 and "Dawn of the Dead" were instrumental in establishing my love of scathing social commentary with dark plots that captured your imagination and showed that no matter what the circumstances that humans themselves are indeed the worst monsters to inhabit this planet.

Romero's ability to run counter cultural themes (having strong black males leads as not only heroes but typically the most established and balanced of the characters during the racially divisive 60's and 70's) while creating a monster that is essentially human with no moral restraint, taking and consuming with no notion of "right" or "wrong".

This theme was taken and expanded upon in the classic 'Dawn of the Dead' (the 1978 original, not the 2004 bastardization by Zack Synder) to where the zombie plague was spreading and a group of humans took shelter in a in door mall. The literal and metaphorical references to the growing consumerism that dominated the 80's was readily apparent and Romero managed to mix the grotesque with the profound.

The next step in my progress down this rather morbid, yet fun path is being exposed to the Evil Dead trilogy which introduced me to the amazing team of Sam Rami, Ted Rami, Bruce Campbell and the rest of their Michigan based team which created an awkward yet lovable series of horror films which merged dark humor with the mythos of HP Lovecraft (Necronomicon, anyone?) whose writings I would not read until I was in the midst of my graduate studies.

After these the only real movies to grab my attention in recent years in the same manner has been "Shaun of the Dead", John Carpenter's "The Thing", "Blade Runner" and the rock opera "Repo! The Genetic Opera!". A very diverse group of films mixed with nihilistic dark humor, horror and most important to me - a reminder that humanity is small, very small and even with my faith I think humanity forgets how remarkably fragile we are and how unique life on earth is in comparison to the rest of the known universe.

Once I started reading Stephen King's "Dark Tower" series and exploring the table top games of "Deadlands" and "Call of Cthulhu" I found this strange fascination with how humanity and the horror seem to go hand in hand.

Almost all of the Christian fiction I have had this misfortune to read is horribly dull, very two dimensional and completely sanitized for consumption within the Christian Cultural Bubbles.

This is a shame.
I believe this must come from the overly puritan roots that influenced a lot of churches and theological thought because once one starts actually reading the Bible from the idea that it is an actual historical document set in a particular time and place over thousands of years one starts to see how dark humanity is.

Sort of like Lovecraft and King actually.

You have murder, rape, genocide, horrifying plagues and so much variation just in Genesis alone, so much more over the rest of the time period recorded in the Bible.

Is it because humans are debase that we seek entertainment that reflects this or is it a means of drawing these horrors out of us so we can openly talk about those things we try to hide from?

I think those of faith who try to hide away from the darkness present in fiction, in the imagination, much less the world are doing themselves a disservice. If we have faith in a God who is bigger than us, greater than any force in this world then why do we cower in our rooms from reality?

It is almost like fiction can be used to liberate us from apathy, waking us from the cold slumber that there are genuine problems in this world that need to be addressed.

At least that is the idea I am shooting for.

There really is no point to beat some one over the head with the notion that there is good and bad...and really I would like to think a lot of my efforts are sort of in the vein of Flannery O'Conner.

"The writer who emphasizes spiritual values is very likely to take the darkest view of all of what he sees in this country today. For him, the fact that we are the most powerful and wealthiest nation in the world doesn't mean a thing in any positive sense. The sharper the light of faith, the more glaring are apt to be the distortions the writer sees in the life around him... My own feeling is that writers who see by the light of their Christian faith will have, in these times, the sharpest eyes for the grotesque, for the perverse, and for the unacceptable... The novelist with Christian concerns will find in modern life distortions which are repugnant to him, and his problem will be to make these appear as distortions to an audience which is used to seeing them as natural."

-Flannery O'Connor
6,574 words and I will be back on track.
I can possibly do this.
I think I can.
I would much rather slump over my desk in despair but writing would be a touch more productive.

Oh dear, oh dear.

*withers away*
Such insane nonsensical nightmares.
Everyone...must...has to go away in the end...and yet...

Hope?

*sigh*

Prayer.
Hope.
Faith.
...love?

Oie...so complicated...fear...doubt...so much...

Quote of the Day:

“He sends a cross, but He also sends the strength to bear it.”
-Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy

Quote of the Day:

"“May today be peace within. May you trust your highest power that you are exactly where you are meant to be... May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith. May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you... May you be content knowing you are a child of God... Let this presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise, and love. It is there for each and every one of you.”
-Mother Theresa
This was actually a very encouraging piece written by Mercedes Lackey:
http://www.nanowrimo.org/node/3853430

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Quote of the Day:

“I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.”
-Bill Cosby
Yes.

Sometimes I do in fact surprise myself.

Dear Jesus

I'm here, confused as always and just hoping to find grace after such a long struggle.

Words are all I have and they are so cheap.

How do I begin to even speak sincerely after all the lies, the doubts, the fears, the hate, the lusts, the pride and all the self destructive wastes of time?

I will never be able to look you in the eye because of how much shame I feel...not just for surviving or being alive...but knowing how I relentlessly turn away from those you send to me...and I just want to hide with me and never see the light again.

But, why and how...you love me?
Not just narcissistic me.
But...this world, those hurting and broken...knowing they can't do this life alone and need love just as desperately as me.

All this aching, all this pining, worry and stress...

What matters?
What truly matters?

Is there anything besides love?
You are so just, so loving, caring, so much more than I can scarcely dare to dream...

Thank you.
Thank you for a new day to live and smile.
Thank you for my loved ones...friends and family who carry me when I am too weak to continue in this broken body.

Such beauty, such wonder.
Infinite splendor
and the priceless pearl
in this broken world of dirtiness.
Thank you now and forever.
Fear!

Loathing!

Excitement!

Yes Nanowrimo!

=D

Friday, November 5, 2010

I am starting to have second thoughts about being a mentor...I already have four victi-er...charges I have agreed to help make it through to the 50k finish line.

Oh dear.

This shall be interesting. ^_^

Internet rage over pie and plagiarism:

I'm just trying to imagine how different this would have been if a cat would have been in danger and 4Chan got pulled into all of this:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=131091599&sc=fb&cc=fp

Thursday, November 4, 2010

So it turns out loud eating is one of my biggest pet peeves.
I swear I am going to have a bloody aneurysm before all is said and done.
I can't believe I just spent fifteen minutes trying to figure out how to spell "icicle".

-_-
You know...despite me tendency towards the negative...

It really isn't all so bad.
Just so much to do...so little time.
It is far too easy to become overwhelmed...to be needlessly lost on things that never will matter.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

I'm feeling so disconnected.
The harder I try the worse it all gets.
I am so tired of being sick.
How long will this existence bathed in twilight will last?

Sometimes it just doesn't even seem worth it...to even ask why.

Then there are moments that without a doubt divine...like in Drama Production yesterday afternoon. With all the hell building up in my life...that was such an unexpected movement of prayer.

What is the point?
I feel so...
How do I trust anyone?
Will the questions ever fade?

I don't want to let anyone close, I do not want to let anyone with the name of Christian near me because I have been betrayed and turned on by almost all of them.

It is almost as if none of them are aware of the irony of wearing the name of Christ and yet being nothing more than baseless animals beneath the shined up and polished exterior.


But the thing is...I can't point the finger.
I am guilty of the same sins and more.

It's like all I am qualified to really do is hypocrisy.

Maybe...I will one day be able to slide out of this impossibly think cynical skin and be able to act as though I am in my mid twenties and not my eighties.
Being ahead of the curve is only good if it leads to something positive....being perpetually exhausted, burned out and seemingly on the verge of collapse helps no one...

It's just...

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

I think I just felt my mind explode. #_#

Monday, November 1, 2010

So many thoughts.
So many irrelevant.
I am tired too.

Positive thinking really isn't too far off though...
Dreams?
What are those?

At some point...there was this...
It was like...
Where are my words?
What did it look like?
How can I begin to paint it for you?

"Where there is no vision , the people perish; but he who keeps the law-blessed is he."
-Proverbs 28:18

I'm sure at some point it was different...
Sure, I will never be accused of being the poster child for optimism...but for some reason and someway it just seems that things...

There is every reason not to do the right thing.
In the world there is every excuse, every means and carte blanche excuse for every and anything under the sun that can lead to over saturation and addiction...


Do any of us really see our blindsides?
See our blatant hypocrisies?
Those sins we harbor and encourage, growing to our own perverse delight?

Is despair itself a sin?
Or is it one only after it becomes a sacred idol, a defining way of life?

I have to work all of this out...it's not just a school problem or an existential crisis...but it is finding myself, finding my work again...finding why I bother at all.

Waking up, breathing, taking care of myself just to do it...just because is not enough. I have to struggle to find some sort of vague echo of life, of health and peace.

I am much too tired to be self sacrificing and to pretend I care about everyone and everything right now...

Is it okay to be honest, even when it leads to pain?
Leads to looking at this slow downward spiral and see it for what it truly is?

I go from feeling nothing, to everything and back to feeling nothing at all...just vague pieces of dust blowing around in this cosmic wind...

I know there are good things, wonderful and beautiful...but I don't know if I was made for them...really made for this world...nothing ever makes sense...and it feels as if my body is continually trying to reject it...reject me...reject everything around here...

Small and stupid words and wonders of these worlds...

Plastic smiles are expected all the same.
Answers or not, truth or fiction...simply being...

Fading away, is it okay?
Is it really the truth?
I just...

Must I choose between everything and nothing?
My normality is so different from everyone else...all these large and impossible things...floating, spinning...growing, crashing, colliding...shaping, reshaping, form and defining themselves in such vivid means...

I just...

Too weary for battle or digging deeper.
I can breath, I can drink tea and I am alive.
I am so grateful for that right now.

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Sometimes...my thoughts terrify me.
I don't like where they lead...where they go...

Sometimes I fear the best thing I could do for everyone around me...is to vanish, run and flee away from everything and everyone I love.

People love me, adore me, praise me, help me, take care of me...and still, they...they do not see the darkness hiding beneath the bumbling fool I desperately try to be.

Just so no one...no one will see the evil I am.

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Yay!

Elated hypocrisy!
Courting with disaster seems to be my almost essential day to day job.

Friday, October 29, 2010

I forgot how nice the cold comfort of apathy can be.
I just don't even know why I bothered...

Thursday, October 28, 2010

It is sort of funny...but I am in a place where I really am not feeling attraction to any female or any remote desire for a relationship...it's been this way since August...so strange but so wonderful.

I honesty don't know if I have ever gone this long with out at least feeling some sort of crush...since what...maybe second grade and liking A.T.?

Oh so silly...and that was something like an eight year crush or something.

I really am starting to understand why the Catholic church forbids priests and other leaders from marrying. It is easier to uproot your life in obedience to God and follow when you don't have such silly things tying you down.

Maybe some people can be redeemed and find meaning in marriage and starting a family...but with my genes, my genetics...that route seems like a damnation rather than a salvation.

Me...a husband...a father?
I don't think I possess the faculties to dream of something like that...much less if it ever became a reality.

I can't take care of myself...I suppose like The Doctor said, "I'm rubbish at weddings, especially my own."

I suppose that could also qualify for funerals as well.

Quote of the Day:

“The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.”
-Soren Kierkegaard

Proverbs 28

"When the godly succeed, everyone is glad.
When the wicked take charge, people go into hiding.

People who conceal their sins will not prosper,
but if they confess and turn from them, they will receive mercy.

Blessed are those who fear to do wrong,
but the stubborn are headed for serious trouble."
-Proverbs 28:12-14


I'm a swirl, a vortex of emotion coming down off of the high of wanting...needing and begging to understand.

But life isn't about if I understand...but if I love like You love, right?

I just...
I really wish things could be more simple...just be able to breath and relax and not worry so much...worrying about everything and nothing...

What is the right thing to do?
What path is righteous?

You see everything so there is not point to conceal who I am...I am just open and bare before you...you see into me and know everything there is...

I'm not praying to change you...but the hope I can be changed.

The hope I can hold on and not fall to the pain inside of me...but to open up and let the hope carry me...let Your love carry me...because You are all I have...now and forever.
"I've become impossible
holding on to when
when everything seemed to matter more
the two of us
all used and beaten up
watching fate as it flows down the path we
have chose

you and me
we're in this together now
none of them can stop us now
we will make it through somehow
you and me
if the world should break in two
until the very end of me
until the very end of you

awake to the sound as they peel apart the skin
they pick and they pull
trying to get their fingers in
well they've got to kill what we've found
well they've got to hate what they fear
well they've got to make it go away
well they've got to make it disappear

the farther I fall I'm beside you
as lost as I get I will find you
the deeper the wound I'm inside you
for ever and ever I'm a part of"

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

The sad part?

I actually wasted my time sincerely offering help.

Nice guys don't finish last, they tend not to finish at all.

It may be because of the aneurysms.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Social drama?

Not to fear!

I'll just narcotize myself with video games, mountain dew and tea...yes...THAT will fix everything.

Now...to get my sarcasm button unstuck...
One of the manifold problems of attempting to play hero all the time is that you end up in a position where...oh it's just silly to say it...or try anything...or do...

It is just...

It is life.

I think I am stuck there with that thought.

God I hate feeling sick...I hate feeling as well...
*sighs*

Fine.

I'm a Ravenclaw.

I'll give up fighting it already.

Stupid know it all Sorting Hats... ~_~

http://www.hexrpg.com/userinfo/Nintene

Proverbs 26

"Smooth[a] words may hide a wicked heart,
just as a pretty glaze covers a clay pot.

People may cover their hatred with pleasant words,
but they’re deceiving you.
They pretend to be kind, but don’t believe them.
Their hearts are full of many evils.
While their hatred may be concealed by trickery,
their wrongdoing will be exposed in public."
-Proverbs 26:23-26

What is the point of my many words?
Slippery slopes of sin, malevolent tapestries woven will such ill intention...
...and what shall I do?
What can I do?

All of these circles, all of this pain...

How can I know who to trust?
It feels as if...exposing myself to any at all is foolhardy because I know how it will end...

Not today or tomorrow...but so few things can last long through time...


Even with all of my doubts and sins piled so high, I pray for grace, forgiveness...hope...you know?

Hope that my failures, my mistakes will not define me from here and throughout eternity...hope I can be washed clean, made new and so I can become more of who you made me to be...

So much hope, so much beauty, so much of everything...it is overwhelming.
I don't want to lie to people, lead them on...treat them like I have been in the past...

It is so easy to hide within pain and shame...but what can I do?
How can I grow and be an adult?

Father, Lover, Lord, King, Master...so many titles, so many ways of expressing You and yet none are sufficient...so many ways, so many ways...

Take my hand, take my life and never let me walk away.
Never let me loose hope in waiting,
renew me everyday so I can breath.
Put a new life in this shell
and teach me how to sing.

Carry me away
to distant lands
and unknown shores.

Renew me
and please never remove Your Holy Spirit from me.
The last thing I deserve is comfort
or peace
but I throw myself before this throne
not know what else to do
except pray,
pray for hope everlasting
and love overflowing.
So both Insane Clown Posse and Owl City have come out of the closet about being Christians.

What's next?

Daft Punk and Slipknot recording a worship album with U2?

Monday, October 25, 2010

Proverbs 25

"Good news from far away
is like cold water to the thirsty.
If the godly give in to the wicked,
it’s like polluting a fountain or muddying a spring.
It’s not good to eat too much honey,
and it’s not good to seek honors for yourself.
A person without self-control
is like a city with broken-down walls."
-Proverbs 25:25-28


What does it take to learn humility in this world?
What does it mean to love, to give and sacrifice?

I am such a silly, silly person so often...I am spread so thin, confused so easily, running all over the world...looking left and right...

I want to lay down and let the pain ebb away...roll away like the tide pulling sand into the ocean...but I know, I know to stop now will mean I will falter and may never get back up again...

I have so few words because of how tired I am...but I feel, I push, I struggle...I can't stop now...no matter what. I have to try...
*sigh*

I miss those trees as silly as this is...

=/

Fleeting moments of childhood...hither and tither...

Chrono Trigger and EarthBound anyone?
I really need a better memory.
And the ability to check my cell phone for missed calls more often...>_>

Quote of the Day:

"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."
-Mohandas Gandhi

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Film Noir of the Soul

Falling, falling, falling.
What does it matter?
Failing, failing, failing.
Every last word is proven false.

God knows the pain I feel,
how if I could
I would just take it all,
carry the shame
carry your pain
and just be real again,
forming out of darkness
so I just will be me.

I miss it all,
Muse fueled words,
God the intoxication!
Yet far from yesterday
and other brilliant sparks
which grew in my heart.

Just like so many things,
feeling and passing,
pulling from my life
and into the sea foam of time
before I know what happens.

The ones I walk with now
I fear will be gone in minutes
if not seconds.
Further loved ones lost,
as I'm forced to live
and damned to survive.

I always must live,
must survive
must outlive the relationships,
the one who makes me feel alive.

Always in shades,
silhouettes
as my prison
is this decaying shell
which damns me to live,
life for now
and live forever.

Always in the now,
this second
which leads to another,
pulling me down paths
and making me decide
and render so much pain.

Damned if I do,
damned if I do not,
damned in every second
of this torture
where I make decisions
and there is never a good choice
or a happy ending.

I have no choice.
I must live.
I was born with these feelings and thoughts
even though I never once asked
or was considered
or quizzed
about where and when.

If I was born a decade earlier or later
so much could be different.
But instead,
my time-line is attached to
nineteen eighty-six
and there is none alive
who I can share this time burden with.

I'm not mad,
not loosing ground
fretting or in rage.

Melancholy,
and missing,
missing and longings
of things I scarcely understood
then or now.

My nightmares are such vivid terrors,
and they come to life on their own.
Such horror.

Why not this dream?
Just this once chance of singular happiness?
Is it a sin to ask?
To beg Yahweh for such?

Were I balanced
and my melancholy removed,
would it shake the foundation
and change this world
making it worse?

Should I just be narcissistic
and assume the pain I tread
and the loneliness I feel
is for the betterment of the world?

At least I can never be accused
or said to lack imagination.
Words, words and more words
just hot air.

Tired, so very tired.
Games, more than plenty
and I just want to run away
far from here
to a new world
and a new age
where I can loose myself in love
and work,
to die surrounded by loved ones
after a generation of loving
and giving all.

But not this life,
not this world.
Noir is the game
and darkness reigns
as the spirit within me cries.

The Dark rises
and who remains to fight,
to stand against the tide?

A singular,
a non-entity
who is frail
and fragile,
steaming the tide
and sacrificing
because someone has to.

I will take all I must,
feel all that is needed,
just so others may have normality
to live and die in peace
while I wear this mantle.

I will stand,
I will live
and surely die
but someone must stand
and stop the tears from being shed.
Until the day they are all wiped away,
I am and will be.
Narcissism and all.

One can change, break
and rearrange the order
and course of humanity.

It's not my place to write history,
just to be faithful
and be crushed by the wheels of fate
and hold onto the faith
which saved and damned me at the same time.

Saved me from my sin, from myself
and the endless divide and solitude.
Yet damned me to never being content,
never being able to rest
and feeling the pain of everyone around me.
It is good and right
to live and give everything
so that others may live
and find normality.

Shades, shadows,
raindrops and teardrops,
do you see and feel them madam?

My obsession,
my destruction,
the course of history
and all that will and could ever be
just found here
within,
following
and flowing with pulse.

Back to bed,
get rest
and dry your eyes
for tomorrow is a new week,
such flitting moments of time,
you just live
seize this new life
and live to love,
to have and have all.

Loving at all is so good
so right
and beautiful,
I will live too,
I have no choice in the matter.

When it is my time to depart
I will hear the sweet whispers
and be enveloped into eternity
and then the only One,
the only One who can handle my pain,
these fears
and the weaknesses people hate me for,
the love for all
and this burning empathy,
I might have peace.

I have to remain
and just hold here,
be faithful
and hold all the pain from others.

Thank you for sending me a beautiful smile.
No matter my fears of contact
or ever being able to full express
and give of myself
it was the brightest beauty this world has ever seen.
No greater beauty will ever be seen,
in this age
or the coming reign of Christ.

Thank you for helping me live,
finding one worthy of being loved
under all these contradictions
and levels of fear.

Thank you madam muse
for placing this joy
and need to accept myself
in this heart.

Eternal gratitude
and hope,
living, taking shape
and forcing its way.
What am I forgetting?
God this is driving me crazy...
God.
Wow.

Such...vivid nightmares.
Again.

I miss...it's stupid and annoying and pointless to say I miss someone when the only thing I was doing...just causing more pain and harm...

I feel like I am just this collection of contradiction, frayed wires and burning pain.

What is...what is the point?

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Indifference, Cancer of the Soul

"This vacant emptiness,
this hollow is eating
stabs through my side like thorns, so defeating.
The glint of gold, sparks of silver, shining
the slightest breath of why we're pining.
We take the crumbs like our hearts are at peace
We are far too easily pleased

Quicksilver, quicksilver
Shadows dodge and fade
something less than why we're made

I need this burning inside me
this brilliant aura, this electricity
I'm being haunted by specters of what might be
of imperfections, of nearness to beauty
As life butchers, so sweet yet so sickening
we have betrayed, for each tiny flickering"
-Roper, "Quicksilver"

"The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of beauty is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, but indifference between life and death...Indifference, to me, is the epitome of evil."

"I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."
-Elie Wiesel



It has become second nature for me to question my motives, why I write and go on all of these rather ridiculous tangents. I really like U2 and my fellow narcissist Bono for the contradictory fact he is a millionaire and spends a lot of his free time and money on the idea of a spiritual, physical and financial renaissance of Africa.

I really can't tell you what my niche is but I thrive off of praise, strut about like a literary peacock and why not? At heart, I am like every artist who is a needy narcissist who will always be seeking the flitting glimmers of human praise.

Which, is self-defeating and oxymoronic considering how I want to point people (Christians especially) to our (read that as MINE, MY, ME) gross hypocrisies, apathy and the general failings of the church towards loving one another, stopping needless and stupid deaths and you know...helping old ladies cross the street.

Which ultimately I think is okay because this is coming from the guy who does his Bible reading while regularly listening to Nine Inch Nails (Might I take this time to recommend the free live album "The Gift"? http://thisoneisonus.org/node/34) so feel free to expect contradiction, exaggeration, satire, malcontent and the fact I am trying to come to terms with the fact I was born human.

I had a point that seems to have been misplaced in all the tangents...something about apathy.

I think.

Ah...here we are:



"Keep on loving each other as brothers and sisters. Don’t forget to show hospitality to strangers, for some who have done this have entertained angels without realizing it! Remember those in prison, as if you were there yourself. Remember also those being mistreated, as if you felt their pain in your own bodies."
-Hebrews 13:1-3



"“But when the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit upon his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered in his presence, and he will separate the people as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep at his right hand and the goats at his left.

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world. For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.’

“Then these righteous ones will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you something to drink? Or a stranger and show you hospitality? Or naked and give you clothing? When did we ever see you sick or in prison and visit you?’

“And the King will say, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!’

“Then the King will turn to those on the left and say, ‘Away with you, you cursed ones, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his demons. For I was hungry, and you didn’t feed me. I was thirsty, and you didn’t give me a drink. I was a stranger, and you didn’t invite me into your home. I was naked, and you didn’t give me clothing. I was sick and in prison, and you didn’t visit me.’

“Then they will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and not help you?’

“And he will answer, ‘I tell you the truth, when you refused to help the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were refusing to help me.’

“And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous will go into eternal life.”"
-Matthew 25:31-46



I quote those above passages, along with the Sermon on the Mount, enough times that I feel like I am running up to each one of you in your your living room and smacking you in the face with a stick that had these verses carved on it.

I am also smacking myself as well and if you get tired of it you don't have to read my silly words.

How do I follow up to the words of the man who claimed to be Messiah, Savior, Creator and God? Either he has/had a severe issue of mental illness, suffered some fairly bad biography writing or was true to his words, every last one of them.

One of the single most disturbing things I have ever witnessed is friends, Christians, who did not understand why I care about issues such as the persecution of Sudanese Christians, the current situation in France of the government violating the human rights of the Roma people by forcibly deporting them, the fact that more Christians (and political activists) have been murdered by Communists in the last century then by hundreds of years of Roman rule.

I don't have a sign, I don't think I have much of an agenda...I just firmly believe every human being is deserving of dignity, respect, security and love. No one should suffer persecution no matter how much I disagree with them and for the most part that is one of the things I love the most about America. The fact that Fox News and MSNBC both exist to annoy one another to no foreseeable end is good for everyone at the end of the day.

A secret their one sided newscasters and many in the church have not discovered is this; listening to other people's opinion and rational thought is not in fact the work of the devil, it is a secret and magical thing called being a mature and reasonable adult.

I have a lot of problems with spiritual unrest and chronic worry...the only times I can think of when the clouds clear is when I write, when I pray and when I overcome my nervous social tendencies and participate in the human race by going to where people are and listening to them. Not hitting them with a gospel stick, showering them with Jesus fish bumper stickers but honestly letting them expose their soul and find this divine moment that only comes about when we realize how hollow our lives are without one another.

The more I live the more I think we really need one another much more than we will ever be comfortable saying out loud.

And by that I mean EVERYONE.
I'm not trying to suggest a pantheistic or Unitarian theology but the simple fact that people are diverse and taking the time to listen and try to act like adults is a bit more productive and important than an "eye for an eye" and a cruise missile for a suicide bomber.

Until someone actually bother to take good ol' Saint Pete (1 Peter 4:8) and everyone's favorite polygamy driven king Solomon (Proverbs 10:12) at their words about love covering over a multitude of sins then we are going to have the Real IRA still trying to blow up Northern Ireland for a "free and united Ireland", the Palestinians and Israelis fighting over stupefyingly small pieces of land and the money making scheme that drives our political process.

I guess I may be making such vague generalities that I might be sabotaging my writings and my point.

That is okay.

Someone needs to sit in the middle and say "Hey guy! It's okay to make sandwiches and not war, we can even make it a kosher diet just to make sure everyone is happy!"

I am more than okay with the fact I love and serve a God who is bigger, more beautiful and amazing than I could ever dare to dream. I am just a beggar looking for grace who happened to hit the jackpot because I found a Lover, a Messiah and a grace that has removed my stains and forced me to look in the mirror and forgive myself and to learn how to let the past go.

Baby steps are okay.
At this point in time any sort of movement forward is in fact forward momentum.
Grace enough for today is in fact enough for today.