I'm a silly loon!

*sigh*

You know...I really shouldn't ask for someone's input...their thoughts about...if I really am not ready to hear the worst.

It's silly...it is stupid to put so much stock in people.
It is silly, it is stupid to just believe and hope like that.
Faith is everything
and the sound of a heart breaking,
with the paint flowing
maybe just bleeding across your TV screen.

And really...yes it is hyperbole,
it is emotions revealing
it's heart
and it's disgusting
just a bit revolting
as we all hear what we want to be.

You're everything
just like I am nothing
baptized in the blood
of our self righteous murders,
killing the hope.

I hope my heresy doesn't hurt
or cause more to bleed.
We all are liars,
adulterers,
and murderers.
The absolute scum of the world
and yet...

Faith dictates Christ's love
in such incomprehensible means.
Mystic as it is knowledgeable.
Unreasonable wrapped in a vision
of blessed hope...

Maybe just maybe
you might believe
I might be of worth
with me just being me.

Quote of the Day:

“Christendom has done away with Christianity, without being quite aware of it. The consequence is that, if anything is to be done, one must try again to introduce Christianity into Christendom.”
-Soren Kierkegaard

Platitude Place-Cards

I'm much too tired for this.
I am too weak...too weary for carrying this cross...

This burden is my ego, my self and my pride...it crushes me as I try to stay afloat.

Little Lamb, what did I do with the light yoke you offered me in exchange?
Did I really cast it aside for this traveling circus from Hell?

I'm crushed.
Everything is fleeting...falling...

The beaten, torn and blackened heart under my chest is pulling me to sin, getting me to drink this bitterness as everything burns around me.

I'm tired.
So weak.
So weary.

Jesus Christ I need You, not a feeling or a cliche.
But the Lover who takes pack such an unfaithful whore.
A Father who takes back His bastard son.

Such infinite worth and I treat it like a plaything.
Beauty, such beauty that is a horror to feel.
Dread hope.
That I am never alone.

Teach me to be faithful.
Rip everything else away.
Put me in my place.
Rip this pride from me.
I can do nothing.

Humble me.
I'm sorry for being such an ignorant, arrogant and apathetic child...

How can You have love for such as I?
Oh Lamb...Son of God...remember me...please pull me out of this maze...this muck.
Do not tarry...but rush to my side...

Lift me from the misery I lusted after and wanted to find...I need You...oh so desperately.

"Jesus is For Losers" - Steve Taylor

Parsing Out Life

Bitter apathy plays across your lips
while these angels cry red tears,
hoping you find relief apart from bitterness.

I can hold the mirror
but you have to look,
pain and fear
aren't the best vestments to wear
when you are handing out blessings.

Smile in the pain
while the night if falling
and we know the end is coming.
Even if Hell comes,
Heaven can be in the smallest spaces
if you just look.

No matter how wonderful or beautiful the future promises to be...change is terrifying. I would almost rather remain in utter misery, just right here, than face change of any sort...

But...maybe...just this once...

Man.
I'm a sinner...I'm dirty and worthless to God as I am.

But...it's grace that saves and redeems...I hope I don't sink too far before I give up and quit...so I might begin to live...

Quote of the Day:

"You knew one thing about a man who was carrying a cross out of the city... you knew he wasn't coming back."
-A.W. Tozer

I need inspiration oh I need it for writing right now...

Why does it seem like every time I try to go to church I get ridiculously sick?
I'm tired of migraines and being nauseated.
Was there really a point in my life where I wasn't nauseated every day?
Where almost every bit of food I ate made me feel like death?

Is this punishment?
For being so judgmental and not showing love?
Is this the price I have to pay for hurting people and pushing them from the cross?
If so...I am worthy of so much worse than this.


The future is wide open an that scares me...the possibilities make me feel the shame because I feel like it's doing nothing but revealing how shallow my faith is...


It seems like every time I feel I have something figured out...doubt, fear, pain all just creep up. My heart bleeds with this regret...and I just want...to be faithful.

That's all I ask.
All I want anymore.
With my living and dying breath I just want to be faith to You.
Nothing else matters.
Everything is fleeting.
Rip me from this comfort.
Love me, faithless wretch that I am.


"Just as you are
Just a wretch like me
Jesus is for losers
Grace from the blood of a tree

Just as we are
At a total loss
Jesus is for losers
Broken at the foot of the cross

Just as I am
Pass the compass, please
Jesus is for losers
I'm off about a hundred degrees

Just as I am
In a desert crawl
Lord, I'm so thirsty
Take me to the waterfall"

Ouch.
Migraine.
Soul disturbance too.
Hmm...

Things are so strange and wonderful...so strange...so surreal and beyond my comprehension.

Even the silence has its own silver lining to a degree...

I'm tired and full of my normal aches but there is a peace that I pray is from the Father and not just my own delusions.

Peace, hope and love...oh please more of all...please.

I had a bizarre dream where I was given a list of people to pray for by Rich Mullins. Most of the people on the list I have never met before...but I have been praying for them.

I have no idea what is going on in my tired and sick mind/soul/heart right now...

Wow my body hurts...but my soul...I think I feel something...maybe it is the peace of letting go?

I am considering lodging a Jobian complaint to God over my health problems as of late...but the last thing I want is an irritated Lord showing up on my doorstep making an account of where I was when He was speaking creation into being.

A Few Thoughts on That Whole National Day of Prayer Thing

Before writing this out I considered a few other names for this article:

"The Oxymoron of Government Endorsed Prayer"
"Why Won't People Let this Die Along with the School Prayer Movement?"

And my personal favorite:

"'Why? Why? Why?' Matthew Asks While Hitting His Head on his Desk"


The past couple of weeks I have seen emails, posts, rants and the like crying out against President Obama for having supposedly canceled the national day of prayer. Spending five seconds on Google I confirmed my suspicions...once again well meaning Christians were passing on false information just because they needed another reason to hate the president.

For those who care to read here is a news article about the National Day of Prayer being ruled unconstitutional and how President Obama is planning on recognizing it all the same:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20002706-503544.html


As a person who studies theology, history and historical theology I was happy to read that the whole National Day of Prayer was ruled unconstitutional. Anytime religion and the government start to get overly friendly and walk hand in hand I see red flags and hear alarms going off in my head.

The very law that allows every person to freely choose whether or not they will pray to whatever deity they wish is the same one that needs to keep itself from being tainted by picking sides. Even just a casual reading of history will show that anytime a government started to champion a religion they did so for political reasons and not because of some sort of spiritual change of heart or conviction.

Ultimately politics is a power game and President Obama would be committing political suicide if he did speak out against the National Day of Prayer. Most politicians never stray too far in extremes because to do so would mean they will alienate and anger more people, it's all a delicate balancing act.

Which to be honest why I hate politics and politicians...there is not much room for conviction and following through on your beliefs, especially for something as radical as Christianity. A government would not function if they took the words of Christ from the Sermon on the Mount and applied them, which if I understand correctly is the point.

The Kingdom that Christ is concerned about has nothing to do with votes, doesn't care about taxes, wants nothing to do with games and is the first to resist violence and striking back. Just to give some context about what Jesus preached:

-"Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy." (Matthew 5:7)
-"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God." (Matthew 5:9)
-"You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.' But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment." (Matthew 5:21-22)
-"You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also." (5:38-39)
-"And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you." (5:40-42)
-"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" (Matthew 5:43)

These are not polite suggestions from a shy Jesus with no sense of conviction or backbone. These teachings are the fire from the heart of the Messiah who took on the cross of pain and bought salvation for the church with his blood. Where does a government fit into these awkward and outrageous demands of this Rabbi?

Let's be realistic, if a person needs a government sanctioned day in which they might consider taking five seconds to pray then odds are these things really do not matter to them in the first place. Prayer, from the Christian perspective, is this incredibly intimate conversation that is a paradox. It is hearing and being changed by this infinite yet somehow personal One that chooses to bridge this gulf by coming to us. The true absurdity of Christianity is how a perfect God is in love with an impossibly broken people.

How does something as shallow and temporal as human government even attempt to fit into this? Ultimately I just see this as being yet another tool used to motivate people in how they vote, it has absolutely nothing to do with the condition of their hearts or souls.

True compassion and conviction cannot be brought out by any sort of government or political party. It doesn't matter what group someone wants to give their time and money to...Republican, Democrat, Conservatives, Liberals or whatever else...they are all just fleeting aspects of a system that will crumble in the long run.

If Christians want to actually be effective it might help if we would drop the picket signs and go serve and help the homeless, the sick, the dying and actually be Jesus for once.



"And when you come before God, don't turn that into a theatrical production either. All these people making a regular show out of their prayers, hoping for stardom! Do you think God sits in a box seat?

"Here's what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won't be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace.

"The world is full of so-called prayer warriors who are prayer-ignorant. They're full of formulas and programs and advice, peddling techniques for getting what you want from God. Don't fall for that nonsense. This is your Father you are dealing with, and he knows better than you what you need."
-Matthew 6:5-8



"He told his next story to some who were complacently pleased with themselves over their moral performance and looked down their noses at the common people: "Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax man. The Pharisee posed and prayed like this: 'Oh, God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, crooks, adulterers, or, heaven forbid, like this tax man. I fast twice a week and tithe on all my income.'

"Meanwhile the tax man, slumped in the shadows, his face in his hands, not daring to look up, said, 'God, give mercy. Forgive me, a sinner.'"

Jesus commented, "This tax man, not the other, went home made right with God. If you walk around with your nose in the air, you're going to end up flat on your face, but if you're content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself.""
-Luke 18:9-14

Seems there is nothing new underneath that sun...

Why?
Why?
Why?

Please...stop the nightmares...please.

"But what wisdom is there within us
To live based on the feeling of our hearts
How many times has instinct let us down
Never to be thought through
Never to be questioned
Say what you really mean
When your ambition calls you
For what use is there in praying
If you will only hear what you want to hear?"

Happiness is...

...is what?
This fleeting feeling?
Fluttering feathers free falling?
Perpetual masquerading masks?

Such antiquated beauty
with no peculiar flavor.

I am not certain I know happiness.
Nor will know it as long as I might think.
The happiest I can be
is being enraptured in the second
so as to engage my soul
and not let it wander into the shadows.

I am told to relax.
Forget and indulge.
But...I am me.
Is this not enough?
Why must such things be said
when they only hurt?



I will not know it when it comes.
Nor see it as it leaves.
But as the door closes
and I sit here in pain
I might rejoice that
the visage of the Muse
staid by reality
and that we may only meet
only under the cover
of moonlight
as we stroll down the lanes of our souls.

This is truth enough
that pain will exist
until the earth is ripped asunder
and placed back right.

This is truth enough
that love will never die
but oh will it be delayed
until the dying moment
and I take my last breath.


Perpetual thoughts
just falling from your sky
in shades of gray
and falling on your plans,
what more can you want from life?

Breath.
Live.
Hunger.
Search.
Desire.
Despair.
Hope.
Death.
Resurrection.

Joy in the fleeting seconds
between horror and pain,
hope that the dawn will come
and even when it will not
that the death will not be in vain.

Will not.
Is.
Shall never.
Ultima.

Quote of the Day:

“Mistrust the man who finds everything good; the man who finds everything evil; and still more the man who is indifferent to everything”
-Johann Kaspar Lavater

Quote of the Day:

"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself."
-Leo Tolstoy

Oh so many vivid impossibilities...

"I want Faith Like That
To see the dead rise
or to see You pass by
Oh I, I want Faith Like That
Whatever the cost
I'll suffer the loss, Oh I
I want the Faith That can move any mountain
and send them to the sea
I want the Faith that can break every stronghold
That keeps you, keeps you from me"

I wish I could cast this all away...and feel my soul run free.
Oh be free...truly free for Love.

Quote of the Day:

"Let others complain that the times are wicked. I complain that they are paltry; for they are without passion. The thoughts of men are thin and frail like lace...The thoughts of their hearts are too puny to be sinful. For a worm it might conceivably be regarded a sin to harbor thoughts such as theirs, not for a man who is formed in the image of God."
-Søren Kierkegaard

Talking to her seems to have been nothing more than a dream.

The deranged assimilation of an exhausted and overworked brain.

Oh how I hurt.
Mr.Reznor you wrote about this.

What have I become?
What will I become?

The pain of breathing...of making myself act while drowning in this ocean of fear and doubt...oh such bitter sweet hope...

Quote of the Day:

"One wonders why no one in church history as ever been considered a heretic for being unloving. People were anathematized and often tortured and killed for disagreeing on matters of doctrine or on the authority of the church. But no one on record has ever been so much as rebuked for not loving as Christ loved...how is it that possessing Christlike love has never been considered the central test of orthodoxy?"
-Greg Boyd

Why must it be pain or nightmares?
Or both?

Why can...

I complain a lot.
The small things hurt.

But You, You are bigger than these things.
Bigger than my hopes, my dreams and pain.
Father...please.
I'm in so much pain.
My body hates me, my mind and soul are so confused...

Hold me in Love.
Please.
Now and forever.

Such exhausted and pain filled irritation...

"I firmly believe people have hitherto been a great deal too much taken up about doctrine and far too little about practice. The word doctrine, as used in the Bible, means teaching of duty, not theory. I preached a sermon about this. We are far too anxious to be definite and to have finished, well-polished, sharp-edged systems - forgetting that the more perfect a theory about the infinite, the surer it is to be wrong, the more impossible it is to be right."
-George MacDonald

Quote of the Day, The Second Part:

"He must have been like me, that Pharisee. He too thought only of himself - how to get a cup of tea, how to keep warm and comfortable; never a thought of his guest. He took care of himself, but for his guest he cared nothing at all. Yet who was his guest? The Lord himself! If he came to me, should I behave like that?"
-Leo Tolstoy

Quote of the Day:

"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him."
-Leo Tolstoy

Yes or No

Vivid.
Vicious visceral intent.
Mind traps.
Redundancy.
Simplicity.

Forgoing freedom for slavery.
Forgetting and breaking down.
Every little thing added.

Reciprocation, if only in lies.
Realization all is here and gone.

Yes and No.
You knew it was this way.
Always.

"Hurt" - Nine Inch Nails

More.
Nightmares.
Thank.
You.
Jesus.

So freaking swell of you.

*sigh*

I hate loosing...and...it's not like 'true love' actually exists anyways...

God I feel physically sick from how bad the nightmares are...I feel like my soul is being ripped apart...

Matthew 11:27-30

"Jesus resumed talking to the people, but now tenderly. "The Father has given me all these things to do and say. This is a unique Father-Son operation, coming out of Father and Son intimacies and knowledge. No one knows the Son the way the Father does, nor the Father the way the Son does. But I'm not keeping it to myself; I'm ready to go over it line by line with anyone willing to listen.

"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly.""
-Matthew 11:27-30

Christian Nihilism

All that is temporal is too late and already faltering in step. It is hard to make a risk on such a thing...as people when it feels like all there is behind the curtain...is just more heart wrenching pain.

But what is the alternative?
Isolation?
Eternally temporal fear?

There is nothing I need...or want to want...want to desire more than God.
Everything else will die, everyone else will go away in the end...

Why can I not just be content with the eternal?
Why must the temporal go on ripping my heart asunder while I plead for a cure for this anxiety leading towards death?

I just...want...or need...or...or...

There are words, poor words.
Fear...hate...fear...

There has to be more to this than the pain.
There has to be more life than this death.

I see across this chasm,
across the billowing ocean
a Love burning so bright
that I scarcely comprehend
but know I am being pulled.

The night is dying
and my hope
oh my hope is crying
as I feel the darkness creep.
The night will end
but until then we must go onward.

Wandering Saint of Destruction

My appetite knows no end.
My eyes are never satisfied.

The fel beast within me snarls in disgust at my weakness and demands more and more.

Nothing is ever sufficient.
Nothing is new under this burning sun.

I feel the coating of sin on my skin.
Burning ever so near.
The heat of want
coupled with the ache of desiring more,
more than this broken body knows how to deliver.

Even if I was given everything,
everything my eyes see
and my hands long to touch,
what would I have left?

There is no contempt
like there is for myself
at such weakness
as wanting it all
so I can hate myself more.

Words.
Useless bloody words
falling from a broken mouth
and all I have is all I have
while I wait and pray.

My righteousness is less than filthy rags.
I am broken and full of contempt,
my rage a senseless repetition
just a reflection of everything I am.

Panic.
Recluse.
Despising myself.
But hope.
Bright burning impossible hope.
Words of Peace breaking my heart,
just letting me begin to heal.

Carry me as I am weak.
Oh so weak from the loss of blood.

Somethings give me hope.
Somethings utterly depress me.
Is it sad that this does both?

Oh what I would do to stop having nightmares...

I just finished reading the last episode of 8-Bit Theater and am mulling over the fact I spent nearly nine years reading a sprite comic.

The brokenness of my soul knows no end for my depravity knows no bounds...such a fierce and horrid struggle...feeling my soul tainted with this vile drink of sin...and how the Spirit within me screams in protest.

I'm so sick of trying to be perfect...conversely I am so exhausted from the taste of sin...I refuse to be a slave to myself...I want to be obedient and simply try.

My words condemn me and my accusers are those of sin...my only hope is the Lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world.

"You place Your hands around my heart, You quiet the emptiness in me
A king that kneels, a God made a servant, You set the captives free
You wait for me, a wretch of a man, no record of wrongs do You keep
You are comfort when I mourn, You are strength when I am weak
Jesus Christ, the king of kings
Though we ache, though we cry, never break, never die
We sing of His great love again and again
And His love reigns forever, and forevermore
Forever and ever, Amen "

Quote of the Day:

"The great ideals of the past failed not by being outlived (which must mean over-lived), but by not being lived enough. Mankind has not passed through the Middle Ages. Rather mankind has retreated from the Middle Ages in reaction and rout. The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried."
-G. K. Chesterton

Soul explosion.
So much know so little comprehended...

Enjoyment of the moment...of this breath of air...of the soothing silence...the taste of water...the beating of the heart and the second of the now being absorbed away by time itself...

"The more you see the less you know
The less you find out as you go
I knew much more then than I do now

Neon heart, day glow eyes
A city lit by fireflies
They're advertising in the skies
For people like us

And I miss you when you're not around
I'm getting ready to leave the ground
Oh you look so beautiful tonight
In the city of blinding lights"

I feel the need to break away from this...to shun my appetites for self destruction, the addiction of self...I see myself in eternity and know I am heading the right way but oh there is so much more...so much further to go...

Is it possible to honor Christ and hold onto money?
Property?
Possessions?

These are real questions...just as I feel real pacifism is...

I want to set a fire with these poor words, see it burn and hope I can walk into the night with You.

Heal me.
Cleanse me.
Fix me.

Teach me please.
...and send me.

Quote of the Day:

"The person who is really in revolt is the optimist, who generally lives and dies in a desperate and suicidal effort to persuade all the other people how good they are. It has been proved a hundred times over that if you really wish to enrage people and make them angry, even unto death, the right way to do it is to tell them that they are all the sons of God."
-G. K. Chesterton

Hello masochism.
Did you miss me?

"'Cause the sweetest melody is the one we haven't heard
Is it true that perfect love drives out all fear
The right to appear ridiculous is something I hold dear
Oh, but a change of heart comes slow"

Quote of the Day:

"Healing hands of God have mercy on our unclean souls once again/Jesus Christ, light of the world burning bright within our hearts forever/Freedom means love without condition,without a beginning or an end/Here's my heart, let it be forever Your's/Only You can make every new day seem so new"

Some Not so Assorted Thoughts on The Cross

I've been a Christian for thirteen years and wrapped up in the traveling circus of ministry for close to ten years of my life and still I cannot get over how absolutely insane my faith seems to myself, much less how it must be viewed by those on the outside looking in at me.

Everything in my heart, in my mind...in my soul comes back to this horror show moment of a Rabbi being mutilated and nailed to a tree. How does one get from this gruesome display to such endless expectation and hope that these physical world is only a mere shade of the true spectrum of reality?

It's not like I just woke up one day and decided to dedicate myself to the endless quest of hunting for the meaning of life and being endlessly distressed over the existential questions of life. I was just a little kid reading J.R.R. Tolkien and playing Super Nintendo RPG's when I had this first transcendental experience that crossed time and space...and somehow...and in someway I felt the horror of my own sins and the endless love of the resurrected Christ.

I'm of the strong stance that a person cannot be born a Christian like it was some sort of political identity or ideology. Christ cannot be found in the systems of government or the institutions of Christendom. The text of the Bible points to Him but ultimately it is this experience of your soul being touched by the eternal.

For some people it is a long series of events with no one particular moment of the light bulb coming on...but for me I have a distinct memory of the first major experience that was followed by an event four years later when Jesus asked me to not just stand in my small church boat of faith but to take His hand and follow into this world.

What does this even mean?
This is the single most important thing in my life but I can never find the words for it...I, full of hubris and overwrought words, am struck and humbled by love. Love by an infinite God who refuses to bow to me or let me define Him in my terms.

At the end of the day my true desire isn't to make a long list of converts, have a paycheck, kiss babies or make everyone happy...I just want to know what it means to love Jesus and love everyone.

Why can't it be that simple?
I have tried to run from both church and ministry in order to 'find myself' but ultimately I realize the problem is in myself, not the people.
The solution is in the macabre and incredibly awkward display of the cross.

The general picture of Jesus is this mystic hippie, Aryan with the blue eyes and blond hair, this soft spoken teacher who just talked about love and had no backbone. The actual teachings of Jesus, much less the cross, makes people incredibly awkward because action is demanded.

It's sort of like what C.S. Lewis said:

"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: "I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God." That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic -on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg- or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the son of God: or else a madman or something worse.

You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."


Quite honestly I sometimes think I must be mad, that everyone of those I love that professes similar beliefs must be in on this worldwide joke...but no.

I have looked those people in the eyes and see the same fire lit inside of them.

Not the fire of political reformation.
Not the fire to sell a product.
Not a fire to judge those of other religions, creeds, race or practices.
Not the fire found in useless platitudes.
But love.
Love that demands we sacrifice all we hold dear in order that we might find life and then give it to others.

I firmly believe that we Christians are either onto the truth or the greatest danger this world has ever witnessed. I'm not a fundamentalist wanting an excuse to kill someone but I want to have the love of Christ burn so passionately in me that I no longer care about political borders and would give my life to showing real love at any cost.

A true martyr is one who by giving up their life is a witness to this love, this impossible personal divine love that somehow points back to this bloody cross.


** ** ** ** **
** ** ** ** **

"From then on Jesus began to tell his disciples plainly that it was necessary for him to go to Jerusalem, and that he would suffer many terrible things at the hands of the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, but on the third day he would be raised from the dead.

But Peter took him aside and began to reprimand him for saying such things. “Heaven forbid, Lord,” he said. “This will never happen to you!”

Jesus turned to Peter and said, “Get away from me, Satan! You are a dangerous trap to me. You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.”

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it.""
-Matthew 16:21-25



But why a cross?
Why is suffering the way to life?
Anyone with any sense of reality can see how screwed up this world is.
It's an oversimplification to simply blame it on sin but that is the closest word I can find to even attempt to explain the horror, the heartbreak, the disease and the proverbial Hell surrounding our comfortable middle class bubbles.

For all the talk about it, the Bible seems to be rarely read in a way that attempts to view it in its proper context...but it is a love story of humanity screwing things up and God reaching out in love to us. It's complicated, messy, confusing and not the neat little package we would want...because it involves humans and a God who is all at once impossibly far away but oh so intimately near.

The Cross is God painting a picture of how horrible our personal and collective sins truly are, how grotesque our abuses of each other are and the radical steps needed for us to begin to be reunited to God and each other.

The Cross is not about guilt for its own sake.
The Cross is not a symbol of power.

If God wanted to destroy, purge or remove us He could.
Life isn't some cosmic chess game with the moves predetermined as much as a bizarre opportunity to learn how to begin to walk in eternity while on this side of things.

The Cross is God's ultimate trump card against our 'can do' attitudes, our attempts to redeem our lives with the material and the abuses against our bodies.

The Cross is the coup de grâce of all religion.
Systems cannot redeem the world, only love in service can.


I have never seen Christianity as anything but a means for learning how to be a failure in the eyes of the world. It is not only taking the 'path less traveled' but burning all the bridges on your way down. It is an all or nothing proposition, a one sided gamble of throwing my life into the only thing that has ever made a shred of sense while simultaneously being so beyond my understanding.

Every lesson of The Cross is counterintuitive:
-If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.
-And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.
-Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
-And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men.
-No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.
-Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?


It almost seems silly to have a single day devoted to talking about, thinking about and dwelling on the cross, the resurrection of Jesus and the forgiveness of sins.
Every morning, every day, every moment of life is this connection that goes back to the cross at Golgotha.

The only hope I have is in this Jesus of Nazareth being the Son of a God that is passionately and hopelessly in love with his broken creation.

We are broken, so hurt, so twisted...we hurt each other and know it is evil but still we do it...but we do not care.

Justice would be our destruction but The Cross is God taking on human flesh and bearing all of our failures, all of our weaknesses and sins so we might finally begin to see what Love is.

This is all I know.
It's what I so desperately hope my fleeting life and poor writings point towards.
Christ is all I have.

"In the soundless awe and wonder,
words fall short to hope again.
How beautiful,
how vast Your love is,
new forever,
world without an end."



"Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn't, and doesn't, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn't been so weak, we wouldn't have known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him."
-Romans 5:6-8

Isaiah 53

Who has believed our message?
To whom has the Lord revealed his powerful arm?
My servant grew up in the Lord’s presence like a tender green shoot,
like a root in dry ground.
There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance,
nothing to attract us to him.
He was despised and rejected—
a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.
We turned our backs on him and looked the other way.
He was despised, and we did not care.

Yet it was our weaknesses he carried;
it was our sorrows that weighed him down.
And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God,
a punishment for his own sins!
But he was pierced for our rebellion,
crushed for our sins.
He was beaten so we could be whole.
He was whipped so we could be healed.
All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.
We have left God’s paths to follow our own.
Yet the Lord laid on him
the sins of us all.

He was oppressed and treated harshly,
yet he never said a word.
He was led like a lamb to the slaughter.
And as a sheep is silent before the shearers,
he did not open his mouth.
Unjustly condemned,
he was led away.
No one cared that he died without descendants,
that his life was cut short in midstream.
But he was struck down
for the rebellion of my people.
He had done no wrong
and had never deceived anyone.
But he was buried like a criminal;
he was put in a rich man’s grave.

But it was the Lord’s good plan to crush him
and cause him grief.
Yet when his life is made an offering for sin,
he will have many descendants.
He will enjoy a long life,
and the Lord’s good plan will prosper in his hands.
When he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish,
he will be satisfied.
And because of his experience,
my righteous servant will make it possible
for many to be counted righteous,
for he will bear all their sins.
I will give him the honors of a victorious soldier,
because he exposed himself to death.
He was counted among the rebels.
He bore the sins of many and interceded for rebels.

Quote of the Day

“Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' But conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but because conscience tells one it is right.”
-Martin Luther King, Jr.

After spending most of the day in bed sick, making an excessively painful drive...I should have just went to bed instead of indulging in my asinine curiosity.

Life is such a paradox...a wonderful burden and painful blessing to carry.
The weakness of my flesh begs for release, it infiltrates my soul and begs a path i must not walk.

But here, oh here my soul is to stay for many fleeing days more.
Is the burden self appointed or was I called to carry the pain of others as my own?

"The gate to my heart has been weld shut
with the splendor of my aspirations closed in
how many years have we waited
for a ship that never set sail?
And how many days have we wasted
chasing a love that was not our own?

Is this your salvation?
Is this all you can give?
I will not stand in reflection
of someone else's dream"


Every megalomaniac bathed idea to cross my lips and mind...
Every jagged emotion cutting my heart as it slips out my mouth...
Every pain.
Every joy.
All of this...for you.
These broken dreams and shattered ideals.
Every last burst of venom I wish to shed for you.

Take this broken soul.
May it yet give you praise.

Quote of the Day:

“When you can assume that your audience holds the same beliefs as you do, you can relax a little and use more normal means of talking to it; when you have to assume that it does not, then you have to make your vision apparent by shock, to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind, you draw large and startling figures.”
-Flannery O'Connor