Goodbye and Good bye September...and hello October.
With your icy cold fingers and breath of death.
Hello and welcome through our door.
Seasons change and demons lay
and times just marches on.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Is there something in the water in this house? Why does my family keep thinking I'm faking being sick? Does the fact the doctor keeps removing gallstones from my body not in the least influence any of them in that there is the SLIGHTEST, possible thing wrong with me?
I just should have tried optimism! Sunshine and puppies can fix my ailments!
My God! How much more of this? How much more of YOU making me deal with them? Seriously, are humans allowed to be this stupid and annoying? Did I really die and get sent into a little personal version of Hell? I feel like I'm going even crazier...like no one believes I am in pain, even though the procedure was done yesterday and more of the stupid stones came out and bile flooded my insides, HOORZAY! I must be imagining myself sick and so the doctor sees my imagination!
God, just why? Why? I have never felt so alone or crazy or stupid for even having survived this long.
I just should have tried optimism! Sunshine and puppies can fix my ailments!
My God! How much more of this? How much more of YOU making me deal with them? Seriously, are humans allowed to be this stupid and annoying? Did I really die and get sent into a little personal version of Hell? I feel like I'm going even crazier...like no one believes I am in pain, even though the procedure was done yesterday and more of the stupid stones came out and bile flooded my insides, HOORZAY! I must be imagining myself sick and so the doctor sees my imagination!
God, just why? Why? I have never felt so alone or crazy or stupid for even having survived this long.
Couple of Thoughts
The last breaths of September are here, after a few more hours this month will fade away with the calender, with it the last thoughts of summer as fall will surely turn into winter.
It is a process, a circle, a state of being that is always becoming, a never ending cycle that will no cease for any human.
Despite any reluctant acceptance on our part we can do nothing but bend to the realities of our perceived creation, known as time. We use it to measure every waking moment, every bated breath, every rhythmical beat of the heart and all the like. It is as beautiful as it is horrifying, amazing in its grand creativity and dull in its monotonous repetition.
It might be hyperbole of a scale caused by the drugs from yesterdays procedure but then again to embrace something as superfluously as time itself is to acknowledge our own potent egos, the fallacies of our own breath, the contradictions we openly embrace for our own sanity's sake...words cannot accurately define it because it is something that metaphors and symbols can only vaguely represent, at best. It is as fleeting as life itself is, something experienced only be doing and not perceiving.
It is life itself, the grand sum of our entireties, the uncomfortable feeling of no longer being connected to the ground but that we are floating. The realization that we are the generational byproduct of either an odd but generous God or the mistake of random evolutionary chance.
It would be so much easier if were not gifted and cursed with the processes of higher thoughts. Any human worth their genetic material cannot simply abide while there is a question. Our greatest strength is always our greatest weakness, the fact we are not satisfied with letting questions be when we can experince it ourself and know first hand what we perceive to be concrete answers.
Annoying as it is to always have this splinter in the back of my mind it is also something I could never honestly live without.
As annoying as it is to deal with the many systems inherent with life, it is a must and the consequence of life. Outside of our own personal control and it is what it is and no more and no less.
Frustrating as it is, life cannot help being what it is. It makes less sense the more you try to rationalize but some things cannot be helped.
It is here that I find myself, this being of sickness, of partaking in my own existence and feeling in ways that make little sense to me and only confuse most others. There are less than a handful of people I might begin to try and explain this to because the rest would just look at me as some sort of oddity, some sort of person who is only in need of more difficult work, stronger drugs or whatever they deem necessary to silence my question in order for them to be content.
That sounds a bit needlessly messianic and for that I apologize. I will never claim to be able to save myself so even giving the smallest inkling that I might be able to save others would be a crime.
Like any other honest human I am bound by my senses and perceptions. Things are what I feel them to be and that in itself is frustrating, liberating and ultimately flawed. Nothing a human feels and become aware of can ever be understood outside of their mind, regardless of how well an optic never perceives and how well a hand writes.
That must be one reason why life is considered to be so precious, it cannot be emulated or represented. When one is lost it is forever so. It is more then just loosing an item, it is loosing a representation of life, more than a collection of chemical and biological reactions, it is much more. Once again, more than what we can understand, it simply is.
I wish I could make everyone understand this better but I can't. It is frustrating and makes me sad.
I feel like a confusion, something only halfway correct. My body is in pain and my mind feels the nerve cells and chemical reactions going on. At any given moment there are various explosions of desire, pain and confusion. I do not understand and do not like it but as long as I inhabit this shell I have to accept it.
I'm burned out on trying to be who I am for other people when I would just like to be myself.
I wish I had better words to express all of this, the life and death inside and around me, the pain and the desires. I'm sick of it all, not being able to better give or remember.
I am tired of being at the demands of myself or pretending I am not just to make others feel better about themselves. I never actually asked to be at the mercy of invisible strings pulling my body in any given direction at once.
I just want to be me. Whoever he is.
I have so little and yet so much time at the same time.
I don't care right this second, my head hurts to bad.
It is a process, a circle, a state of being that is always becoming, a never ending cycle that will no cease for any human.
Despite any reluctant acceptance on our part we can do nothing but bend to the realities of our perceived creation, known as time. We use it to measure every waking moment, every bated breath, every rhythmical beat of the heart and all the like. It is as beautiful as it is horrifying, amazing in its grand creativity and dull in its monotonous repetition.
It might be hyperbole of a scale caused by the drugs from yesterdays procedure but then again to embrace something as superfluously as time itself is to acknowledge our own potent egos, the fallacies of our own breath, the contradictions we openly embrace for our own sanity's sake...words cannot accurately define it because it is something that metaphors and symbols can only vaguely represent, at best. It is as fleeting as life itself is, something experienced only be doing and not perceiving.
It is life itself, the grand sum of our entireties, the uncomfortable feeling of no longer being connected to the ground but that we are floating. The realization that we are the generational byproduct of either an odd but generous God or the mistake of random evolutionary chance.
It would be so much easier if were not gifted and cursed with the processes of higher thoughts. Any human worth their genetic material cannot simply abide while there is a question. Our greatest strength is always our greatest weakness, the fact we are not satisfied with letting questions be when we can experince it ourself and know first hand what we perceive to be concrete answers.
Annoying as it is to always have this splinter in the back of my mind it is also something I could never honestly live without.
As annoying as it is to deal with the many systems inherent with life, it is a must and the consequence of life. Outside of our own personal control and it is what it is and no more and no less.
Frustrating as it is, life cannot help being what it is. It makes less sense the more you try to rationalize but some things cannot be helped.
It is here that I find myself, this being of sickness, of partaking in my own existence and feeling in ways that make little sense to me and only confuse most others. There are less than a handful of people I might begin to try and explain this to because the rest would just look at me as some sort of oddity, some sort of person who is only in need of more difficult work, stronger drugs or whatever they deem necessary to silence my question in order for them to be content.
That sounds a bit needlessly messianic and for that I apologize. I will never claim to be able to save myself so even giving the smallest inkling that I might be able to save others would be a crime.
Like any other honest human I am bound by my senses and perceptions. Things are what I feel them to be and that in itself is frustrating, liberating and ultimately flawed. Nothing a human feels and become aware of can ever be understood outside of their mind, regardless of how well an optic never perceives and how well a hand writes.
That must be one reason why life is considered to be so precious, it cannot be emulated or represented. When one is lost it is forever so. It is more then just loosing an item, it is loosing a representation of life, more than a collection of chemical and biological reactions, it is much more. Once again, more than what we can understand, it simply is.
I wish I could make everyone understand this better but I can't. It is frustrating and makes me sad.
I feel like a confusion, something only halfway correct. My body is in pain and my mind feels the nerve cells and chemical reactions going on. At any given moment there are various explosions of desire, pain and confusion. I do not understand and do not like it but as long as I inhabit this shell I have to accept it.
I'm burned out on trying to be who I am for other people when I would just like to be myself.
I wish I had better words to express all of this, the life and death inside and around me, the pain and the desires. I'm sick of it all, not being able to better give or remember.
I am tired of being at the demands of myself or pretending I am not just to make others feel better about themselves. I never actually asked to be at the mercy of invisible strings pulling my body in any given direction at once.
I just want to be me. Whoever he is.
I have so little and yet so much time at the same time.
I don't care right this second, my head hurts to bad.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Bloody Notes
I think one of the main reasons I am so frustrated with so many Christians apathy, selfishness, moral failings and in general their existence is because of how much of myself I see in them, the trappings of humanity I mean.
It is not easy to fail to live up to expectations, especially when those expectations are yours and you typically are an irrational beast focused on himself.
I wish I could be like the others, uncaring and blind in their intoxicating drugs and hedonism.
I may be in miserable pain both with my spirit and body but I know.
I know.
I have seen things no other human has nor would they believe. I have lived a short but explosive life, going places I never intended to either.
It honestly feels like I am at the very end of something. It could be my life in Jemison, my barely functioning trust in Him above or it might be the end of my trappings here on earth.
I wish I could just drink myself into a stupor, just let go and have hedonistic sex with as many women as I could, I wish I could take every possible drug to dull the ache inside my chest that travels through my stomach and to the very reaches of my soul.
My life would be so much easier from a philopshy point of view, a greater number of superficial people would like me more and want me around.
None of it would matter in the long run, it would all be equably pointless as a think and as a treat most people as being.
I seem as being lepers who might possible infect me if I bother to foster any sort of relationship with them. I see them as meaningless scum, the dried out refuse of a world that sees them as being. Worthless, pretentious, lying and theiving bastards, ever last one of them.
As if it was some sort of sick joke I hold myself up as being better than all of them. It is as if I can lie to myself long enough and even I might be tempted to believe it. But, I can't even full the most gullible person, myself.
So much hate. So much extreme emotion and desire I do not understand. I have all of these impulses of seething rage, desperate lust for superficial intimacy, all of these stupid chemical reactions in my head that make less sense than they might have before.
Who am I?
Who are you?
Why, why any of this?
You are the only one that makes sense,
can we just go away,
both You and I?
Run free across these dying wastelands
and find ourselves alone.
Deeply running connections that none understand
but you and I.
This unbreakable heart longs to be held,
understood and shattered.
The desire to be bent and broken is strong,
the desire to die that I might live again.
No matter how much I desire You in love
I hate you back with equal spite.
These contradictions en mass,
Resulting in delayed connections.
I can play this game but I will loose.
I can't stand who I am
anymore than maybe you.
I need a helping hand,
to be held and brought deeper and closer,
this isn't making anymore sense than before.
I could use some disgusting waste,
some indulging lies and forgotten purpose.
Being broke and shattered across this pretty lie,
knowing the look of disgust in your eyes is justified
just because I gave in and indulged.
Your petty lies just make me sick sister,
I just hope you are hurting like me.
The burning desires in my heart manage to touch yours
and leave unforgettable scars that you will never
live down in this life or the next.
It is just this music playing in my ears,
the deep resonating pain inside me.
I hate all I ever held dear,
nothing is worth this, nothing is worth this.
Worthless like so much fool's gold.
Worthless in your sugar coated lies
and false promises.
Worthless because you never knew how
you were such a fool.
All that is remaining after this fire is me.
You can die and be set to rest
in this gold lined coffin,
I have far to much pain left to feel and give.
Gifts too gleeful not to share.
A wicked smile behind serrated teeth,
free flowing masses of blood as I bathe in it.
Soaking up every last desire of my heart
so i can smile at you in pain,
knowing that I KNOW you know my hate.
The inescapable disgust that you are weaker
and I fail because I choose to.
The verdict is in:
I never had enough love to love you.
But why would I stop while I'm on a roll?
Learning to hate you is just too much fun.
It is not easy to fail to live up to expectations, especially when those expectations are yours and you typically are an irrational beast focused on himself.
I wish I could be like the others, uncaring and blind in their intoxicating drugs and hedonism.
I may be in miserable pain both with my spirit and body but I know.
I know.
I have seen things no other human has nor would they believe. I have lived a short but explosive life, going places I never intended to either.
It honestly feels like I am at the very end of something. It could be my life in Jemison, my barely functioning trust in Him above or it might be the end of my trappings here on earth.
I wish I could just drink myself into a stupor, just let go and have hedonistic sex with as many women as I could, I wish I could take every possible drug to dull the ache inside my chest that travels through my stomach and to the very reaches of my soul.
My life would be so much easier from a philopshy point of view, a greater number of superficial people would like me more and want me around.
None of it would matter in the long run, it would all be equably pointless as a think and as a treat most people as being.
I seem as being lepers who might possible infect me if I bother to foster any sort of relationship with them. I see them as meaningless scum, the dried out refuse of a world that sees them as being. Worthless, pretentious, lying and theiving bastards, ever last one of them.
As if it was some sort of sick joke I hold myself up as being better than all of them. It is as if I can lie to myself long enough and even I might be tempted to believe it. But, I can't even full the most gullible person, myself.
So much hate. So much extreme emotion and desire I do not understand. I have all of these impulses of seething rage, desperate lust for superficial intimacy, all of these stupid chemical reactions in my head that make less sense than they might have before.
Who am I?
Who are you?
Why, why any of this?
You are the only one that makes sense,
can we just go away,
both You and I?
Run free across these dying wastelands
and find ourselves alone.
Deeply running connections that none understand
but you and I.
This unbreakable heart longs to be held,
understood and shattered.
The desire to be bent and broken is strong,
the desire to die that I might live again.
No matter how much I desire You in love
I hate you back with equal spite.
These contradictions en mass,
Resulting in delayed connections.
I can play this game but I will loose.
I can't stand who I am
anymore than maybe you.
I need a helping hand,
to be held and brought deeper and closer,
this isn't making anymore sense than before.
I could use some disgusting waste,
some indulging lies and forgotten purpose.
Being broke and shattered across this pretty lie,
knowing the look of disgust in your eyes is justified
just because I gave in and indulged.
Your petty lies just make me sick sister,
I just hope you are hurting like me.
The burning desires in my heart manage to touch yours
and leave unforgettable scars that you will never
live down in this life or the next.
It is just this music playing in my ears,
the deep resonating pain inside me.
I hate all I ever held dear,
nothing is worth this, nothing is worth this.
Worthless like so much fool's gold.
Worthless in your sugar coated lies
and false promises.
Worthless because you never knew how
you were such a fool.
All that is remaining after this fire is me.
You can die and be set to rest
in this gold lined coffin,
I have far to much pain left to feel and give.
Gifts too gleeful not to share.
A wicked smile behind serrated teeth,
free flowing masses of blood as I bathe in it.
Soaking up every last desire of my heart
so i can smile at you in pain,
knowing that I KNOW you know my hate.
The inescapable disgust that you are weaker
and I fail because I choose to.
The verdict is in:
I never had enough love to love you.
But why would I stop while I'm on a roll?
Learning to hate you is just too much fun.
Several Rather Awesome Albums
"Acthung Baby", "Zooropa", "Pop" - U2
"Supernatural" - dc Talk
"Five Iron Frenzy 2: Electric Boogaloo" - Five Iron Frenzy
"The Light of All Things Hoped For" - Brave Saint Saturn
"Somewhere in the Inbetween" - Streetlight Manifesto
"The Great Depression" - Blindside
"Songs in the Key of Life" - Stevie Wonder
"Discovery" - Daft Punk
"London Calling" - The Clash
"At Folsom Prison" - Johnny Cash
"Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness" - The Smashing Pumpkins
"No Sir, Nihilism is Not Practical" - Showbread
"The Triptych" - Demon Hunter
"Supernatural" - dc Talk
"Five Iron Frenzy 2: Electric Boogaloo" - Five Iron Frenzy
"The Light of All Things Hoped For" - Brave Saint Saturn
"Somewhere in the Inbetween" - Streetlight Manifesto
"The Great Depression" - Blindside
"Songs in the Key of Life" - Stevie Wonder
"Discovery" - Daft Punk
"London Calling" - The Clash
"At Folsom Prison" - Johnny Cash
"Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness" - The Smashing Pumpkins
"No Sir, Nihilism is Not Practical" - Showbread
"The Triptych" - Demon Hunter
Mirror Images
I'm nothing more than a child,
pretending to be a man.
There is nothing within me
but a childish mind.
Regardless of my false impact
I'm just as hollow
if not more so then these religious tracts.
I speak of being free and being Yours,
but in reality I am nothing less
then the grand total
of a vast improbability
and impossibility,
the sum culmination
standing naked before your eyes.
I can play at being something else,
but you will always see past my image
and see the traitor under the skin.
Every breath I take
and ever lie I hold
You look past and see the real me.
Despite my honest depravity
You have loved me as I am.
Images can play back off of this mirror
but you see what no one else wants to.
You feel the pain in ways
that terrify others.
Because of your love, we hate you.
We bring about your death because
we are terrified of being found worthy,
being understood,
being anything less then what we want.
If it wasn't for the fact we desired it,
we think we would have nothing.
We demand justice and a sign
when all we are doing is standing in your hands.
Broken trusts with shattered lies,
mixed with the tears burning your eyes,
we hate you for showing weakness,
for daring to love us when we first hated you.
pretending to be a man.
There is nothing within me
but a childish mind.
Regardless of my false impact
I'm just as hollow
if not more so then these religious tracts.
I speak of being free and being Yours,
but in reality I am nothing less
then the grand total
of a vast improbability
and impossibility,
the sum culmination
standing naked before your eyes.
I can play at being something else,
but you will always see past my image
and see the traitor under the skin.
Every breath I take
and ever lie I hold
You look past and see the real me.
Despite my honest depravity
You have loved me as I am.
Images can play back off of this mirror
but you see what no one else wants to.
You feel the pain in ways
that terrify others.
Because of your love, we hate you.
We bring about your death because
we are terrified of being found worthy,
being understood,
being anything less then what we want.
If it wasn't for the fact we desired it,
we think we would have nothing.
We demand justice and a sign
when all we are doing is standing in your hands.
Broken trusts with shattered lies,
mixed with the tears burning your eyes,
we hate you for showing weakness,
for daring to love us when we first hated you.
Friday, September 26, 2008
I can't stand who you are.
If I stopped long enough to consider,
even think about the complications
that arise from your life
then I might be nicer.
But I am not.
Just a fiend,
judging
and holding myself
to be much higher,
beyond perfection
and much more than
you could be aware of.
There is so much I just miss and so much pain right now.
If I stopped long enough to consider,
even think about the complications
that arise from your life
then I might be nicer.
But I am not.
Just a fiend,
judging
and holding myself
to be much higher,
beyond perfection
and much more than
you could be aware of.
There is so much I just miss and so much pain right now.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Words Lost In Thoughts
The words floating in this air between us lost their meaning hours ago.
I'm too tired to care enough to lie to you.
If it was still all about you I would just let you be
but my soul is tired from bleeding.
Anemic and empty it just wants to sleep.
Fall into Your arms and find rest.
Sometimes it helps for people to be honest.
Let the bad air be let out,
the honest truth happy endings are on movies.
Celluloid lullabies we whisper,
clutching to whatever idols we built.
It's not a sin to be optimistic
but false hope is a worse despair when it is ripped
and torn from your bleeding hands.
Being slave to the addiction of life,
the fragrance of sin
and the biting taste of its liquor.
This drug setting my veins on fire,
burning inside my soul as I beg to scream
through this bound lips.
Trite as this all may sound it is my life,
not yours and nothing I asked for.
Something more then what the dead have.
It's all I got and it shouldn't be wasted.
I'm too tired to care enough to lie to you.
If it was still all about you I would just let you be
but my soul is tired from bleeding.
Anemic and empty it just wants to sleep.
Fall into Your arms and find rest.
Sometimes it helps for people to be honest.
Let the bad air be let out,
the honest truth happy endings are on movies.
Celluloid lullabies we whisper,
clutching to whatever idols we built.
It's not a sin to be optimistic
but false hope is a worse despair when it is ripped
and torn from your bleeding hands.
Being slave to the addiction of life,
the fragrance of sin
and the biting taste of its liquor.
This drug setting my veins on fire,
burning inside my soul as I beg to scream
through this bound lips.
Trite as this all may sound it is my life,
not yours and nothing I asked for.
Something more then what the dead have.
It's all I got and it shouldn't be wasted.
Cell phone text messaging is honestly one of the most obnoxious and among the stupidest modern inventions of man. That alone would be enough to cause me to wish for any earlier apocalypse but the only thing worse than this annoying technology are those who insist on partaking in it and will not be silent about it.
If I had to choose between a nuclear apocalypse or dealing with someone text messaging me you had better believe I would take the nuclear apocalypse, hands down.
At least that way the freaking cell towers will be down.
If I had to choose between a nuclear apocalypse or dealing with someone text messaging me you had better believe I would take the nuclear apocalypse, hands down.
At least that way the freaking cell towers will be down.
I am simply just everyone's fool.
I can smile and I can dance,
I can writing and wax poetically
and I can wear a smile.
That is enough to make them happy
but few look to see inside me.
That I do not enjoy the games and tire of the wasted life.
If you would dare to venture forth from thy house
and take a look dear lady
then you might see something different.
A horror show of ultra violence,
a shocking sight of human depravity.
You speak of experience but you fool only yourself.
If nothing else you almost make me laugh.
How pitiful, how sad.
God help you because I sure as Hell won't.
I can smile and I can dance,
I can writing and wax poetically
and I can wear a smile.
That is enough to make them happy
but few look to see inside me.
That I do not enjoy the games and tire of the wasted life.
If you would dare to venture forth from thy house
and take a look dear lady
then you might see something different.
A horror show of ultra violence,
a shocking sight of human depravity.
You speak of experience but you fool only yourself.
If nothing else you almost make me laugh.
How pitiful, how sad.
God help you because I sure as Hell won't.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
NANOWRIMO IS COMING!!!
NANOWRIMO IS COMING!!!
NANOWRIMO IS COMING!!!
NANOWRIMO IS COMING!!!
NANOWRIMO IS COMING!!!
NANOWRIMO IS COMING!!!
NANOWRIMO IS COMING!!!
NANOWRIMO IS COMING!!!
NANOWRIMO IS COMING!!!
NANOWRIMO IS COMING!!!
Winter Rains
It is safe to assume you will hear as long as you stand to listen.
We have this platform, you and I, on which we share life.
The days are born, christen with rain and die in shades of red.
The bridegroom chasing his wife,
waxing needlessly eloquent poetry over a mere function of the sky.
The first of many gifts we take for granted.
We laugh together, you and I, in this place.
The skies are gray and forebode violence.
Their chill is matched on in the vapid violence within.
Attentions can be held only for a moment,
the moment before the fallen and grounded rise to meet the heavens.
Inhibitions fall short at the reflection and marvels of the inside.
Everything we take for granted is summed up into this neat package,
real only in the metaphysical and in our delusional pinnings.
We are real in each others eyes only as long as we can see.
When we pass beyond vision and earthly perceptions
please remember me,
for the good and not the bad.
Remember the falling rain intertwined with tears,
the heavens echoing your sentiments in a burning cold.
It has gone beyond a simple choice of no,
it is deciding where you will spend the rest of the all in all.
If this is all we have left,
this place in our rain,
then we have truly fallen from grace.
Angels with no wings,
except we do not know the heaven we missed.
Embracing stains that can never be erased
in exchange for a self made prison.
Hypocritical hyperbole I can only hope is true.
Cravings for grace,
for mercy
and to live
for the love.
Confused battles with no purpose,
except that they exist out here in our rain.
The seas churning in turmoil at the lies
we perfected into a reassuring smile.
Endless seas of thoughts covered in the ever falling rain.
Swirling mists and broken fires lay about in grand circles.
The record player continues to skip in its corner and it screeches,
almost with remorse over what has happened,
what is happening
and what is to come.
A future oh so much clearer,
because of loosing that inhibition.
I refuse to pretend just to make you happy.
Even if you hate it from now until the end,
it sill survive.
All of these things move beyond us and it is okay.
Even with all of these contrived trends
I find nothing worthy of mentioning.
I have nothing but this platform and you.
The emotions pour out easily when you start to realize,
start to realize the utter humanity of our enemy
and the reluctance to extinguish a life that is worthy of life.
I cannot pretend to know.
Things are as they ever will be and can be.
People return but somethings never change.
Even with no moral support, no food and no sleep it can be done.
Just a small walk around our platform
and let the truth speak beyond the floating mists,
a darkened shower,
beyond the trite names.
Let it fall, intermingled with tears.
Colds winds and water lightly dancing in the sky.
Reminders of life and we're still alive.
The only fear we have is together,
just you and I.
We have this platform, you and I, on which we share life.
The days are born, christen with rain and die in shades of red.
The bridegroom chasing his wife,
waxing needlessly eloquent poetry over a mere function of the sky.
The first of many gifts we take for granted.
We laugh together, you and I, in this place.
The skies are gray and forebode violence.
Their chill is matched on in the vapid violence within.
Attentions can be held only for a moment,
the moment before the fallen and grounded rise to meet the heavens.
Inhibitions fall short at the reflection and marvels of the inside.
Everything we take for granted is summed up into this neat package,
real only in the metaphysical and in our delusional pinnings.
We are real in each others eyes only as long as we can see.
When we pass beyond vision and earthly perceptions
please remember me,
for the good and not the bad.
Remember the falling rain intertwined with tears,
the heavens echoing your sentiments in a burning cold.
It has gone beyond a simple choice of no,
it is deciding where you will spend the rest of the all in all.
If this is all we have left,
this place in our rain,
then we have truly fallen from grace.
Angels with no wings,
except we do not know the heaven we missed.
Embracing stains that can never be erased
in exchange for a self made prison.
Hypocritical hyperbole I can only hope is true.
Cravings for grace,
for mercy
and to live
for the love.
Confused battles with no purpose,
except that they exist out here in our rain.
The seas churning in turmoil at the lies
we perfected into a reassuring smile.
Endless seas of thoughts covered in the ever falling rain.
Swirling mists and broken fires lay about in grand circles.
The record player continues to skip in its corner and it screeches,
almost with remorse over what has happened,
what is happening
and what is to come.
A future oh so much clearer,
because of loosing that inhibition.
I refuse to pretend just to make you happy.
Even if you hate it from now until the end,
it sill survive.
All of these things move beyond us and it is okay.
Even with all of these contrived trends
I find nothing worthy of mentioning.
I have nothing but this platform and you.
The emotions pour out easily when you start to realize,
start to realize the utter humanity of our enemy
and the reluctance to extinguish a life that is worthy of life.
I cannot pretend to know.
Things are as they ever will be and can be.
People return but somethings never change.
Even with no moral support, no food and no sleep it can be done.
Just a small walk around our platform
and let the truth speak beyond the floating mists,
a darkened shower,
beyond the trite names.
Let it fall, intermingled with tears.
Colds winds and water lightly dancing in the sky.
Reminders of life and we're still alive.
The only fear we have is together,
just you and I.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
I'm here right now.
Where are we going to go together?
I know the bad that is going to happen because there is so much fear inside of me.
It is sort of hypocritical of me, I know. Depression, the desire to die and not wanting to live...and yet still I feel absolute terror over the thought of being put in danger again.
I haven't been able to sleep well or function. I randomly have the shakes and just am not sure how long I can live like this before I pop.
The dawn is quickly coming this way, lighting up in bright shades of gray.
I long for a better place and better time but I'm afraid my fear will compel me to stay here to long and I will die.
Just stay here please, do not let me go because the hour is late and I don't know what to do or what will happen.
Please.
Where are we going to go together?
I know the bad that is going to happen because there is so much fear inside of me.
It is sort of hypocritical of me, I know. Depression, the desire to die and not wanting to live...and yet still I feel absolute terror over the thought of being put in danger again.
I haven't been able to sleep well or function. I randomly have the shakes and just am not sure how long I can live like this before I pop.
The dawn is quickly coming this way, lighting up in bright shades of gray.
I long for a better place and better time but I'm afraid my fear will compel me to stay here to long and I will die.
Just stay here please, do not let me go because the hour is late and I don't know what to do or what will happen.
Please.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Saturday, September 20, 2008
I'm here right now.
Where are we going to go together?
I know the bad that is going to happen because there is so much fear inside of me.
It is sort of hypocritical of me, I know. Depression, the desire to die and not wanting to live...and yet still I feel absolute terror over the thought of being put in danger again.
I haven't been able to sleep well or function. I randomly have the shakes and just am not sure how long I can live like this before I pop.
The dawn is quickly coming this way, lighting up in bright shades of gray.
I long for a better place and better time but I'm afraid my fear will compel me to stay here to long and I will die.
Just stay here please, do not let me go because the hour is late and I don't know what to do or what will happen.
Please.
Where are we going to go together?
I know the bad that is going to happen because there is so much fear inside of me.
It is sort of hypocritical of me, I know. Depression, the desire to die and not wanting to live...and yet still I feel absolute terror over the thought of being put in danger again.
I haven't been able to sleep well or function. I randomly have the shakes and just am not sure how long I can live like this before I pop.
The dawn is quickly coming this way, lighting up in bright shades of gray.
I long for a better place and better time but I'm afraid my fear will compel me to stay here to long and I will die.
Just stay here please, do not let me go because the hour is late and I don't know what to do or what will happen.
Please.
I'm here right now.
Where are we going to go together?
I know the bad that is going to happen because there is so much fear inside of me.
It is sort of hypocritical of me, I know. Depression, the desire to die and not wanting to live...and yet still I feel absolute terror over the thought of being put in danger again.
I haven't been able to sleep well or function. I randomly have the shakes and just am not sure how long I can live like this before I pop.
The dawn is quickly coming this way, lighting up in bright shades of gray.
I long for a better place and better time but I'm afraid my fear will compel me to stay here to long and I will die.
Just stay here please, do not let me go because the hour is late and I don't know what to do or what will happen.
Please.
Where are we going to go together?
I know the bad that is going to happen because there is so much fear inside of me.
It is sort of hypocritical of me, I know. Depression, the desire to die and not wanting to live...and yet still I feel absolute terror over the thought of being put in danger again.
I haven't been able to sleep well or function. I randomly have the shakes and just am not sure how long I can live like this before I pop.
The dawn is quickly coming this way, lighting up in bright shades of gray.
I long for a better place and better time but I'm afraid my fear will compel me to stay here to long and I will die.
Just stay here please, do not let me go because the hour is late and I don't know what to do or what will happen.
Please.
The only place I feel safe is my room but it acts like a prison cell, cutting me off from the rest of the world. But God, I can't handle much more contact with the people I know. I am feeling so stretched...like I am pulled to far apart...too many conflicts, pains and confusing sentiments.
I want to go home.
Beyond this desolate wasteland.
This cheap plasticland with no sense of real,
I'm so sick of this all.
I want to go home.
Beyond this desolate wasteland.
This cheap plasticland with no sense of real,
I'm so sick of this all.
Friday, September 19, 2008
I'm thinking you might not recall that morning...but I do. It was on the History channel and I almost died the night before. You gave me a bowl of cereal after I had a very long and rough night of not being able to sleep.
It's amazing how being treated like a human can be so humanizing...a reminder that it is okay to just be me...that all the thoughts I process are just thoughts and do not mean anything more then I allow for them to.
It's amazing how being treated like a human can be so humanizing...a reminder that it is okay to just be me...that all the thoughts I process are just thoughts and do not mean anything more then I allow for them to.
As A Matter of Fact
You ask for a why but herein there lies no reason.
You want to know me deeper
and feel that the reason is real.
I can't offer you anything but uncertainty,
a look at the masks I wear and the lies
forever tied around my neck,
millstones crashing into the dark deeps.
This is me,
the real me,
the me never seen.
You wouldn't know me if you could see,
could see me being him
and he staring as me.
The most sincere thing I can do is lie.
Because stories embody more truth
then anyone can bare.
It's not like you can breath underwater
or take my life for it's problem.
I want to be free,
run free,
escape from this constraint of life.
To not feel like every breath of my being
is just another lie and another burden,
something to be tolerated but never accepted
for me.
I can be me but you wouldn't know me,
you would never see me walk across your street.
You are just happy knowing this half life
because you are afraid to be disappointed in my humanity.
You want to know me deeper
and feel that the reason is real.
I can't offer you anything but uncertainty,
a look at the masks I wear and the lies
forever tied around my neck,
millstones crashing into the dark deeps.
This is me,
the real me,
the me never seen.
You wouldn't know me if you could see,
could see me being him
and he staring as me.
The most sincere thing I can do is lie.
Because stories embody more truth
then anyone can bare.
It's not like you can breath underwater
or take my life for it's problem.
I want to be free,
run free,
escape from this constraint of life.
To not feel like every breath of my being
is just another lie and another burden,
something to be tolerated but never accepted
for me.
I can be me but you wouldn't know me,
you would never see me walk across your street.
You are just happy knowing this half life
because you are afraid to be disappointed in my humanity.
Twelve (Mostly) Good Reasons To Vote for Cthulhu for President in 2008
My friends another election year is before us.
Republicans versus Democrats, liberals versus conservatives, ethnic groups versus ethnic groups, ninjas versus pirates, religious zealots versus those less inclined to use explosives as a negotiating tactic...and many more groups of well renown will waste countless millions of dollars on fundamentally pointless campaigns and debates all to bring us all to what is quite noticeably the "same darn thing term after term".
My friends, it is time for a change.
Instead of voting for the same tired politicians who are bound by being "all too human" I urge you to consider another choice.
A higher choice.
Consider...Cthulu.
1.Odds are you have trouble pronouncing his name too.
2.When you are an Elder God you do not have to worry about petty things such as being too old or too inexperienced to run for such a job as leader of the free world. Other requirements such as being patriotic,having a military record and in general being 'nice' tend go out the window as well.
3.There will not be much of a need to worry about the Pro-Life vs Pro-Choice debate because Cthulhu tends to lean quite heavily towards the Pro-Eradication of Everything stance, which turns out to negate the need for that particular sensitive argument.
4.Equality will no longer be an issue because all of humanity will be enslaved in the ever present darkness of horror that will sweep the globe.
5.Wall Street worries? Our new currency will run off of what I have been told will loosely be knows as "The Cries of The Eternally Tortured Damned That Reside Under His Most Unholy Tentacled Face's Throne".
Obviously it will have a higher exchange rate against the Euro.
6. The seal motto "e pluribus unum" is to be replaced with "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn".
How does one hope to ever compare the obviously inferior "Out of Many, One." to the eloquent beauty of "In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming."
7.No more debates over whether or not America is a Christian nation. Mandatory copies of the Necronomicon ex Mortise will be shipped out to every household (Deadites not included).
8.I seriously doubt any terrorist group could be fundamentally idiotic enough to launch an attack under his lovingly desolate eyes of utterly nihilistic destruction.
9.Cthulhu couldn't blink in the face of danger if he wanted to.
10.Concerned about being Green? With his new "Eternally Scorched Earth Scorched Earth Wasteland" policy, there will no longer be a need for groups such as Greenpeace, PETA or Al Gore.
11.Sick of special interests groups and corruption scandals? Cthulu believes in equality for all citizens and will equally destroy both the loyal and unwilling of his servants.
12.Once you hear him speak no one is able to resist his call.
Republicans versus Democrats, liberals versus conservatives, ethnic groups versus ethnic groups, ninjas versus pirates, religious zealots versus those less inclined to use explosives as a negotiating tactic...and many more groups of well renown will waste countless millions of dollars on fundamentally pointless campaigns and debates all to bring us all to what is quite noticeably the "same darn thing term after term".
My friends, it is time for a change.
Instead of voting for the same tired politicians who are bound by being "all too human" I urge you to consider another choice.
A higher choice.
Consider...Cthulu.
1.Odds are you have trouble pronouncing his name too.
2.When you are an Elder God you do not have to worry about petty things such as being too old or too inexperienced to run for such a job as leader of the free world. Other requirements such as being patriotic,having a military record and in general being 'nice' tend go out the window as well.
3.There will not be much of a need to worry about the Pro-Life vs Pro-Choice debate because Cthulhu tends to lean quite heavily towards the Pro-Eradication of Everything stance, which turns out to negate the need for that particular sensitive argument.
4.Equality will no longer be an issue because all of humanity will be enslaved in the ever present darkness of horror that will sweep the globe.
5.Wall Street worries? Our new currency will run off of what I have been told will loosely be knows as "The Cries of The Eternally Tortured Damned That Reside Under His Most Unholy Tentacled Face's Throne".
Obviously it will have a higher exchange rate against the Euro.
6. The seal motto "e pluribus unum" is to be replaced with "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn".
How does one hope to ever compare the obviously inferior "Out of Many, One." to the eloquent beauty of "In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming."
7.No more debates over whether or not America is a Christian nation. Mandatory copies of the Necronomicon ex Mortise will be shipped out to every household (Deadites not included).
8.I seriously doubt any terrorist group could be fundamentally idiotic enough to launch an attack under his lovingly desolate eyes of utterly nihilistic destruction.
9.Cthulhu couldn't blink in the face of danger if he wanted to.
10.Concerned about being Green? With his new "Eternally Scorched Earth Scorched Earth Wasteland" policy, there will no longer be a need for groups such as Greenpeace, PETA or Al Gore.
11.Sick of special interests groups and corruption scandals? Cthulu believes in equality for all citizens and will equally destroy both the loyal and unwilling of his servants.
12.Once you hear him speak no one is able to resist his call.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
I hate my sexuality, my emotions, my mental state, my weakness, my fear, my loves, my lusts, my desires, my weaknesses, my being, myself, my core, my central thought, my spirit, my intellect and my philosophy.
So much wrong and yet there is so much left that has potential and could be right.
Could be.
So very close.
So much wrong and yet there is so much left that has potential and could be right.
Could be.
So very close.
I'm still in literal fear for my life...even though it was on Monday...or Tuesday...or something. I can't even remember all that well. This week has just been a medicated haze...if I didn't need the pills for control of the nausea and pain then I would have never taken them. I'm out of antidepressants and I'm much to freaked out to back to the psychiatrist.
It is a weird place to be...it feels like I'm almost dead and almost alive...this gray place between light and dark. There is a weird contradiction in me being here, being alive, feeling, thinking, processing when there is so much...anti-life...so much death at every possible intersection and corner of life.
It isn't dramatic when you stop to think that every word is a symbol and has meaning only in proper context and enunciation...it is a construct we invented to keep our sanity, just like time. We lord our man made constructions as being God like in order for us to hurt and press down on those we deem inferior.
Not being able to pronounce every word correctly, making spelling and grammatical errors...yeah, that makes you such a big shot. Makes me look ignorant and stupid, shows me as being the genetic mistake that I am.
Every ounce of academic knowledge you so desperately cling to...as if it were some grand and impervious defense...as much as you like to pretend you are something special, somehow bigger and better...you are absolutely nothing.
My memories, my pain, my emotions are something tangible. My experiences with the other is something tangible. Maybe not to you or to others but it is something.
Every last tear I have cried, every shred of my innocence ripped from my being, every last inch of my sanity that I have lost in this fight...all of them are real. Real as the grave markers that show where my dead family lay.
It is a weird place to be...it feels like I'm almost dead and almost alive...this gray place between light and dark. There is a weird contradiction in me being here, being alive, feeling, thinking, processing when there is so much...anti-life...so much death at every possible intersection and corner of life.
It isn't dramatic when you stop to think that every word is a symbol and has meaning only in proper context and enunciation...it is a construct we invented to keep our sanity, just like time. We lord our man made constructions as being God like in order for us to hurt and press down on those we deem inferior.
Not being able to pronounce every word correctly, making spelling and grammatical errors...yeah, that makes you such a big shot. Makes me look ignorant and stupid, shows me as being the genetic mistake that I am.
Every ounce of academic knowledge you so desperately cling to...as if it were some grand and impervious defense...as much as you like to pretend you are something special, somehow bigger and better...you are absolutely nothing.
My memories, my pain, my emotions are something tangible. My experiences with the other is something tangible. Maybe not to you or to others but it is something.
Every last tear I have cried, every shred of my innocence ripped from my being, every last inch of my sanity that I have lost in this fight...all of them are real. Real as the grave markers that show where my dead family lay.
I'm reminded of any and everything.
The things you are, the words you have said.
Everything.
Fleeting words in the air. The smell of decay. The rampant self thought.
It all has basis in images, metaphors and the lack of communication.
Walls.
I mean, getting past the crappy prose and poetry, realize none of this has any relevancy.
The point exists far beyond your ability to comprehend that you do not understand your lack of ability to understand.
Every last metaphorical romp is at best half guessed at worse nothing less then the grand total of nothing.
At the same time, this is a stirring deep within me.
Far beyond these desolate dunes and forsaken deserts is a hope for eternity.
Beyond this pain, this malfunctioning machine posing as a human, there is a soul whose heart beats will move into eternity.
Nothing fleeting will be eternal but this hope of my heart is something beyond any comprehension.
The broken body and collection of blood was enough to redeem an unfathomable mass, if so then I know I am not above redemption. That only my pride needs to die that I may find myself truly alive.
The things you are, the words you have said.
Everything.
Fleeting words in the air. The smell of decay. The rampant self thought.
It all has basis in images, metaphors and the lack of communication.
Walls.
I mean, getting past the crappy prose and poetry, realize none of this has any relevancy.
The point exists far beyond your ability to comprehend that you do not understand your lack of ability to understand.
Every last metaphorical romp is at best half guessed at worse nothing less then the grand total of nothing.
At the same time, this is a stirring deep within me.
Far beyond these desolate dunes and forsaken deserts is a hope for eternity.
Beyond this pain, this malfunctioning machine posing as a human, there is a soul whose heart beats will move into eternity.
Nothing fleeting will be eternal but this hope of my heart is something beyond any comprehension.
The broken body and collection of blood was enough to redeem an unfathomable mass, if so then I know I am not above redemption. That only my pride needs to die that I may find myself truly alive.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Busy with speaking with a tongue of fire,
I don't take the time to watch the world around me
and seem almost surprised to see things burning.
I don't even know when to shut my mouth
and could care less that I'm killing others.
The only time my soul feels is in the pain.
I only hear when I stop and stand still and hold my heart in my hand.
The sins of my past are a mountain,
a burning pyre putrid with the smell of ego
and self worship.
I don't take the time to watch the world around me
and seem almost surprised to see things burning.
I don't even know when to shut my mouth
and could care less that I'm killing others.
The only time my soul feels is in the pain.
I only hear when I stop and stand still and hold my heart in my hand.
The sins of my past are a mountain,
a burning pyre putrid with the smell of ego
and self worship.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Demon Hunter - My Throat Is An Open Grave
We lay face in pale solitude.
To save face, we pulled our walls in front of you.
To the same place where we danced in front of you.
We fell from grace and watched the hope'fall from your face.
This isn't me i used to say.
All the love was so gone.
It feels good to be alive.
I've been dead for so long: and all the broken promises.
I can't face. Afraid if someone notices, I lose my place.
Fractured, broken, paralyzed.
I need some space, tear me open, analyze.
This isn't me i used to say.
All the love was so gone.
It feels good to be alive.
I've been dead for so long.
Wake up screaming, I'm awake and dreaming,
And i won't stop breathing until my heart stops beating.
This isn't me, i used to say.
All the love was so gone, It feels good to be alive,
I've been dead for so long.
Francisco Goya,
Painted it gay,
I'd rather have been shot,
On the Third Of May.
Freedom never came for free,
Patriots are bleeding their veins clean,
That's me in the corner,
Singing "God Save the Queen",
God save the queen.
Independence Day,
Second of May,
Lost my best friend and a fiancé',
So I will hold this candle high.
Independence Day,
Nothing I could say,
Could sway you not to sever ties,
Your liberty can't rest on lies.
I can think of better synonyms for fear,
I hope your life is great
I hope it's been a
wonderful year.
Waiting every day,
Staring at the phone,
Jesus Christ, I feel so empty and alone.
-Brave Saint Saturn, "Independence Day"
Painted it gay,
I'd rather have been shot,
On the Third Of May.
Freedom never came for free,
Patriots are bleeding their veins clean,
That's me in the corner,
Singing "God Save the Queen",
God save the queen.
Independence Day,
Second of May,
Lost my best friend and a fiancé',
So I will hold this candle high.
Independence Day,
Nothing I could say,
Could sway you not to sever ties,
Your liberty can't rest on lies.
I can think of better synonyms for fear,
I hope your life is great
I hope it's been a
wonderful year.
Waiting every day,
Staring at the phone,
Jesus Christ, I feel so empty and alone.
-Brave Saint Saturn, "Independence Day"
I'm scared right now...I sort of just wish I could actually be held.
I hate feeling so alone, so separated...so unable to communicate with people and express myself about this.
I have to leave home, maybe for good...and for why? To save my life? To run from the pain, the confusion, the hate.
I want to actually be free.
I want to be able to breath again.
I'm indulging my selfish addictions of fear and lusting for freedom from myself.
The dark has never been so absolutely terrifying...I'm afraid to listen to music...it's like the walls are closing tighter on me and I want nothing but to be freed from this earthly shell.
...so why do I fear?
I hate feeling so alone, so separated...so unable to communicate with people and express myself about this.
I have to leave home, maybe for good...and for why? To save my life? To run from the pain, the confusion, the hate.
I want to actually be free.
I want to be able to breath again.
I'm indulging my selfish addictions of fear and lusting for freedom from myself.
The dark has never been so absolutely terrifying...I'm afraid to listen to music...it's like the walls are closing tighter on me and I want nothing but to be freed from this earthly shell.
...so why do I fear?
Monday, September 15, 2008
Poorly Conceived Thoughts
It is a safe bet the day is at an end,
the mommies and daddies scurry home
to microwave their dinner,
set their childrean in front of a screen
and rest up.
Just to take their express way back again.
The normal people just run back and forth and I'm stuck here,
just wherever here is.
I don't pretend to know myself or even you,
just know that I'm in love and it's just got to be enough
even when things aren't simply enough.
I get sick of playing the roles in life I always have.
Sometimes things work out great
and other times it never could have been worse.
There is nothing worse than meandering thoughts
that are fool of self preserved adoration.
I can run but it will never be fast enough.
I could just pretend but I will never be good enough.
This poetry is bad enough but just throwing it around like this,
it should be a crime.
I'm not sure what is worse,
talking about it with horrid attempts at internal rhyme
or just the thought of having to share my rooms again.
I'm much better at being a selfish and closed hearted prick.
If I don't even pretend to be nice then I will not be faulted for sin.
It would be nice to cry or maybe to try cutting myself open.
Peeling back these layers of self ridiculed doubt,
exposing tender flesh and to dare to push deeper.
Knowing my own selfishness
is my own demented guide.
At the end of the day I just have to conclude as I so often have:
It is selfish to say the world would have been better without me.
It hurts those who profess to love me.
But as selfish as it is to ever put ones happiness in front of the well being of others,
I must persist in denying the validity of my own existence.
I wish God played dice,
just so I could justify this thought.
If I could afford I would run.
Instead I am stuck here.
Medicated haze that is crashing even as I write.
Nothing makes sense anymore then it did the day before.
I keep hearing these noises of movement, inside my head and out there in the dark.
I'm not sure but I think I look forward to trying to placate myself with lust.
I mean, why not?
It isn't like my hypocrisy isn't the worlds worse secret.
I flagrantly flash my worse sins in exahnge for praise and adoration.
None of this could pretend to make sense in any form.
But I want sleep too.
I don't want to ramble all night while I'm becoming more scared by the moment.
No one will ask what needs to be asked.
But it is okay.
I'm used to it.
Otherwise I might have developed a few issues.
the mommies and daddies scurry home
to microwave their dinner,
set their childrean in front of a screen
and rest up.
Just to take their express way back again.
The normal people just run back and forth and I'm stuck here,
just wherever here is.
I don't pretend to know myself or even you,
just know that I'm in love and it's just got to be enough
even when things aren't simply enough.
I get sick of playing the roles in life I always have.
Sometimes things work out great
and other times it never could have been worse.
There is nothing worse than meandering thoughts
that are fool of self preserved adoration.
I can run but it will never be fast enough.
I could just pretend but I will never be good enough.
This poetry is bad enough but just throwing it around like this,
it should be a crime.
I'm not sure what is worse,
talking about it with horrid attempts at internal rhyme
or just the thought of having to share my rooms again.
I'm much better at being a selfish and closed hearted prick.
If I don't even pretend to be nice then I will not be faulted for sin.
It would be nice to cry or maybe to try cutting myself open.
Peeling back these layers of self ridiculed doubt,
exposing tender flesh and to dare to push deeper.
Knowing my own selfishness
is my own demented guide.
At the end of the day I just have to conclude as I so often have:
It is selfish to say the world would have been better without me.
It hurts those who profess to love me.
But as selfish as it is to ever put ones happiness in front of the well being of others,
I must persist in denying the validity of my own existence.
I wish God played dice,
just so I could justify this thought.
If I could afford I would run.
Instead I am stuck here.
Medicated haze that is crashing even as I write.
Nothing makes sense anymore then it did the day before.
I keep hearing these noises of movement, inside my head and out there in the dark.
I'm not sure but I think I look forward to trying to placate myself with lust.
I mean, why not?
It isn't like my hypocrisy isn't the worlds worse secret.
I flagrantly flash my worse sins in exahnge for praise and adoration.
None of this could pretend to make sense in any form.
But I want sleep too.
I don't want to ramble all night while I'm becoming more scared by the moment.
No one will ask what needs to be asked.
But it is okay.
I'm used to it.
Otherwise I might have developed a few issues.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
I'm going but to what end?
It is hard to tread the ground of this place, even though I have been there before. There just too many painful memories, thoughts, broken hopes and crushed dreams fluttering in the sky. Idealism was born, breed and murdered there...but just as with every problem it is mine.
For far too long I was under the misconception that those in church instinctively hated me...and yet the problem has been that I have instinctively hated both church and Christians, on principle no less.
A bastardized view made all the worse by the fact I insist on living in such a deplorably depressed state of existence. Part circumstance, part me, part others but ultimately choice.
The days are becoming increasingly fleeting as I loose my identity and footing. It is a very steep distance to fall and yet...
It is hard to tread the ground of this place, even though I have been there before. There just too many painful memories, thoughts, broken hopes and crushed dreams fluttering in the sky. Idealism was born, breed and murdered there...but just as with every problem it is mine.
For far too long I was under the misconception that those in church instinctively hated me...and yet the problem has been that I have instinctively hated both church and Christians, on principle no less.
A bastardized view made all the worse by the fact I insist on living in such a deplorably depressed state of existence. Part circumstance, part me, part others but ultimately choice.
The days are becoming increasingly fleeting as I loose my identity and footing. It is a very steep distance to fall and yet...
As exhausted and drained as I am...I still have the choice, the choice I was born with.
To live or to die, the choice is mine and mine alone to make.
To live and to choose what I will fight for and more importantly what I will live for day in and day out.
No other being can make the choice for me because the choice is made by my decisions and how I live.
To live or to die, the choice is mine and mine alone to make.
To live and to choose what I will fight for and more importantly what I will live for day in and day out.
No other being can make the choice for me because the choice is made by my decisions and how I live.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Portraits in Red
I just so badly long for the words that I need to tell you, so you might know how much I hate you, how the pain is simply searing as it courses through my veins. I lack the vernacular to just simply express my distaste of you.
Vocal inflections and screams can never give justice to the absolute disgust your presence brings, nor can it give account for the revolting taste in my mouth at the merest mention of your name.
It can't be hate because hate would mean I have loved.
It is more bare, more visceral.
Your existence pains me beyond anyone rational comprehension.
There is no separating the two of us, the duality of existing as one in two parts and two dwelling in one.
We share the same smirk and a gaze in the mirror is just a look out another window.
Everything I ever pretended to love was just so I could learn properly how to hate. Every lie spoke through warmly smiling lips was preparation so I might recognize you. The basis of my life is this moment of recognition of a reconditioning.
The very blood that runs inside of you is nothing short of cursed, a corrosive liquid
prolonging the life of one who understands nothing but the wicked. A disgusting waste of organic material that is simply acting as a human life.
I can't be this person you wanted. You run these chemicals and inflame my neurological passages with impulses to ravage life as thought it were nothing more then my playground. That nothing in life exists apart from my control and my desires.
The thing I hate most is this bitter taste. This chalky, bitter and repulsive taste of sin. Nothing is satisfying, everything is disgusting because it is nothing more then a mixture of organic trash that is slowly rotting and coming apart. The smell is nauseating and the end is just the same, this impossibly horrific death of thought, death of emotions and death of self.
None of these lies can serve to compel me to serve you.
The created must have a creator, just because you claim ownership does not mean you are equipped to handle anything, much less the task of loving on so as selfishly disgusting as yourself.
Nothing is a mantra you can sing and clutch to. Nothing is all that you possess and own in the most intimate of ways. This impossible contradiction, this juxtaposition of carnal thought mixed with spiritual undertones. These relentlessly wild thoughts demanding religious overtones.
Symphonic in its mating calls and dying screams. Contradictory, impulsive and the sum mass of all other lies. A defining role to be played.
Embellishment, nothing more and nothing less.
The very sight of you makes me so sick.
Vocal inflections and screams can never give justice to the absolute disgust your presence brings, nor can it give account for the revolting taste in my mouth at the merest mention of your name.
It can't be hate because hate would mean I have loved.
It is more bare, more visceral.
Your existence pains me beyond anyone rational comprehension.
There is no separating the two of us, the duality of existing as one in two parts and two dwelling in one.
We share the same smirk and a gaze in the mirror is just a look out another window.
Everything I ever pretended to love was just so I could learn properly how to hate. Every lie spoke through warmly smiling lips was preparation so I might recognize you. The basis of my life is this moment of recognition of a reconditioning.
The very blood that runs inside of you is nothing short of cursed, a corrosive liquid
prolonging the life of one who understands nothing but the wicked. A disgusting waste of organic material that is simply acting as a human life.
I can't be this person you wanted. You run these chemicals and inflame my neurological passages with impulses to ravage life as thought it were nothing more then my playground. That nothing in life exists apart from my control and my desires.
The thing I hate most is this bitter taste. This chalky, bitter and repulsive taste of sin. Nothing is satisfying, everything is disgusting because it is nothing more then a mixture of organic trash that is slowly rotting and coming apart. The smell is nauseating and the end is just the same, this impossibly horrific death of thought, death of emotions and death of self.
None of these lies can serve to compel me to serve you.
The created must have a creator, just because you claim ownership does not mean you are equipped to handle anything, much less the task of loving on so as selfishly disgusting as yourself.
Nothing is a mantra you can sing and clutch to. Nothing is all that you possess and own in the most intimate of ways. This impossible contradiction, this juxtaposition of carnal thought mixed with spiritual undertones. These relentlessly wild thoughts demanding religious overtones.
Symphonic in its mating calls and dying screams. Contradictory, impulsive and the sum mass of all other lies. A defining role to be played.
Embellishment, nothing more and nothing less.
The very sight of you makes me so sick.
Friday, September 12, 2008
It would be so easy for me to pretend, to be something I'm not.
It would be all to easy for me to be the me you would love to see.
It would be nothing but easy for me to slide down these stairs,
wear a stupid grin and just pretend it's not really me.
But at the end of the day,
it is just me under this skin.
Behind the clothes and stupid grin
is just this kid.
At the end of your day,
you may see what you want
but you seem to not see me.
It would be easy for me to sit back and play this game,
let the dice roll and take my place.
See you with a smile and move up a couple of spaces.
But in the end it'll just be me, nothing more and nothing less.
Unless you see me as me, you'll never know who me is.
It would be all to easy for me to be the me you would love to see.
It would be nothing but easy for me to slide down these stairs,
wear a stupid grin and just pretend it's not really me.
But at the end of the day,
it is just me under this skin.
Behind the clothes and stupid grin
is just this kid.
At the end of your day,
you may see what you want
but you seem to not see me.
It would be easy for me to sit back and play this game,
let the dice roll and take my place.
See you with a smile and move up a couple of spaces.
But in the end it'll just be me, nothing more and nothing less.
Unless you see me as me, you'll never know who me is.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
On the Oddity of Sanity
Reading through my blog on Myspace...I just sort of have come to the realization that circumstances have been changing inside and around me...but I, myself, am not changing.
The same pain I felt a year ago, two years ago...it is all the same.
How much am I to blame for this? Is this my fault for not healing? Have I refused to allow any light inside of me, is it just because I love the darkness too much?
It's not like I sent out a sincerely humble request that I be born in the summer of 1986. Personally, I like to think that if I would have been told in advance I was coming to earth (assuming we exist in any form pre-earth form, but that is another migraine for another time that should only be taken in this current context for it's somewhat forthcoming comedic value)I would have gone kicking, screaming and grabbing onto anything bolted down, rather then take a one way ticket down here.
I am Matthew Adam Pike. The son of David and Pam, the grandson of a group of mostly dead people who of only one I was close to (Clovis, my mom's mom) and only one other I know of is alive (John, my dad's dad). I have a lot of aunts, uncles and a lot of cousins.
I was born in the great year of 1986 in a hospital in Birmingham and a couple of days later was brought to live in this small village called Jemison.
Honestly, I really doubt many people choose to live here willingly. They were either born here, ran out of gas/money while traveling, have no concept of a bigger world or are simply masochistic at heart. There could be the rare person that enjoys it here but I will simply chalk that up to mad rumors or cases of temporal insanity.
I went to the aptly named Jemison Elementary and High schools. Grew up around the same group of people most of my life as well, be it at school or church. I vaguely remember a few names here and there but that isn't the important part, what matters is that it was the typical small town in the south eastern section of the United States in the 1990's up until 2004.
The people lived out their confusing teenage thoughts full of grand schemes and impossible quantities of dramatic angst (of which I am only slightly guilty of both).
I'm not sure which is more amazing, the fact I managed to survive all these years of schooling while being such a nut case or the face I managed to do so in such a way that it actually looked like I knew what I was doing.
I myself endured horrors such as a five year long crush on a girl, awkward ideas as to what fashion was, somehow being the leader of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (when I have no athletic bone in my body and none of the main members were athletes. Seriously people, how did we do that for four years with no name change? Has anyone taken a marketing class since then?), a ridiculous amount of time in band only pretending to play saxophone (you try doing marching formations with a twenty lbs sax swinging from your neck and see if you can play a note), so many throughly bizarre experiences with religion, spirituality, church and the like...I mean I could go on but we all have lives like this.
We all have good and bad memories.
Some are amazing and cause our hearts to pound almost out of our chest...other memories make our faces burn and tears start to run out...bitter sweet moments of love and stabbing betrayals of the heart.
Things that make absolutely no sense and still we have to accept and move on.
Utterly bizarre contradictions of our own personal character and being and yet, yet we still live and we still have to push on.
Music, words and friendships are the three things that have kept me sane over the years.
Music.
I honestly have no clue what it is that makes me love music as desperately as I do. Really, I do not understand music theory all that well and have incredibly sub par skills, yet I was able to bluff my way in marching band for six years and supposedly I have been in a real band for the past nine years...not sure what those count for but it does count for something in my mind.
I have to listen to music and when I do it sweeps me away. I attach memories, thoughts, hopes, daydreams, my writings and everything in life to songs. There are certain songs I listen to when I am sad, when I am happy, when I cry, when I hurt, when I feel like being silly, when I need encouragement and when I just have to break down and realize how little of life really matters.
Nothing I have ever experience can come close to the extreme rush of playing on stage. The drymouth and pre-show shakes you get before every show, no matter how small or big the audience. The incredible beating of your heart as you take the stage and you hear the drums erupt like a canon, the aggressive riffs fly from the guitar and then you know, you just KNOW you are going to screw up your cue...but by some miracle of God you manage to slide your fingers up the neck of the bass and start to crank out some sort of deep rumbling throb that is nothing short of a purpose giving beat.
Why do I love playing so much, being in a band?
It is a way of having identity and fellowship. I am a bass player at heart. I see no reason to play music unless you are working with others, I have ALWAYS have trouble practicing without having others around, partly because I am lazy and partly because of the need for the collaboration. The need to feel wanted and needed. It is nice, it is easy and the attention itself is so addicting.
Having a personality that is easily addicted and that thrives off of highs and lows...it is easy to loose yourself and forget who you are...happens every day of my life.
Every now and then I just have this overwhelming urge to play music again, to find a way back on a stage...but honestly I have no clue how healthy that is anyway.
Friendships and Relationships.
Two loaded words in my vocabulary.
I have always claimed that to me, my friends are what I consider to be my true family. Which is something I have always done out of a deep seated fear of family. I didn't have a perfect life growing up but, who actually did? If I had to endure the personal Hell's that some of my friends have been through I would have died, no question.
Why do some people seem to suffer more then others? Is it simply reaping what we sow? Maybe just the fact we are all screw ups anyway and how the dice fall is how they fall?
I like to think I am a fairly tolerant person but when I hear fellow Christians go on excessively about how we all deserve pain, we all deserve punishment for our sins...part of me agrees but at the same time, no one deserves the pain in their life. No matter how horrible, how evil or how screwed up they are...we all deserve love, we are supposed to be made in the imago dei, image of God, and that alone makes someone worthy of love.
Call me crazy but all of the Adolf Hitlers and leaders of genocide in the history of the world might have be a bit less crazy if they were hugged as a kid. Maybe if instead of being told how much garbage they were, it might have helped them to know that they could be accepted and loved for who they are and not who they should be. We can get into playing the what if game all day but it is still just a thought. People have to be taught to hate just as much as they have to be taught selfless and sacrificing love.
I go into that tangent for a slight purpose, I am starting to think to believe that so much of human behavior is a mixture of the chemicals exploding in our brains mixed with however we grew up.
Even if I wouldn't have grown up in a rather bad home life, I would have been a very odd and very neurotic human being. Factor in the fact I grew up in a situation where I have never seen a sane marriage or what it means to be an adult male...we sort of start to have a pattern that I believe has drastically shaped my life without knowing it.
Something that has always baffled me is how people tend to apologize to me when I say my parents got divorced when I was three and then my dad died when I was eight (or something along those lines). Don't get me wrong, it sucks but if I were to film out every last memory I have of my dad, what an odd sounding video, it would take up maybe fifteen minutes tops.
Why would people apologize? I mean, sure it is nicer then someone just laughing at me, but at the same time it is almost like they are not just apologizing for the bad circumstances but apologizing for me missing something deep and unexplainable.
I mean, it is almost like there is a REASON why we have two parents, a mother and a dad. Some sort of mystical thing that happens when you have two parents raising a kid, novel idea in todays world.
I'm starting to think that part of the reason why I tend to be so...odd, terrified of love, scared of even reasonable commitment...is because of not having a dad, not really seeing how the right kind of relationship should work.
I seem to recall reading in Anne Lamott's book "Traveling Mercies" where she mentions experiments with lab rats. That the way to ensure a rat becomes insane is to frequently and randomly change the variables in any experiments involving it. It eventually will get to a point where the rat is terrified and neurotic, it doesn't know if stepping on the switch will give it food or electrocute it and...as odd as this is I relate well to that story.
Every relationship in my life is like a switch in a rat cage. I step on it and (bearing in mind this is how my mind views things)either I get a rewarding and tasty piece of cheese (which would be an indulgent and easy stroke of my ego, some sort of affirmation of acceptance, a hug, affection or whatever) or I get a shock of the lifetime and it might be these horrible situations but...more often then naught, it is merely just dealing with hearing a valid criticism, someone loosing their temper, hearing about how disappointed with me someone is, etc.
The huge headache for me is that I am not sure how to separate the good from the bad. What I mean is that there gets to be a point where relationships become more then superficial and it terrifies me deeply. We're talking absolute fear among other things...and then it just gets to the point where I cannot tell the good from the bad. Things become really jumbled in my head and I start uncontrollably flinching when I'm touched or I jump at loud noises...weird things but it is a deep seated part of me.
So deep that I am not sure where any of it ends or begins. Could this be part of me that was made when I was born into a family with only superficial bonds?
What do you do with this? I have always felt excessively guilty about not loving my family more but to me the easiest thing is to just not care. It is easier to lock myself in my mind and segregate myself from my surroundings then it is to actually live with others. There are a lot of parts of me that no one has seen and that never want to be seen by another human.
The biggest crime anyone dating me has done is simply wanting to get to know me and unknowingly a point is reached where they hit these incredibly sensitive nerves and I responded by leaping about twelve feet in the air screaming about lemons and upon landing I would dive out the nearest window ranting about how the British were coming and Paul Revere needed to be warned.
I promise I'm not crazy.
I'm just special, in ways that only a mother and Jesus could truly appreciate.
Writing.
Why do i write?
The basic math I can figure is such:
A quarter therapeutic, a quarter for reasons of keeping my sanity, a quarter for self gratification, a quarter for having fun, a quarter because I do not know what else to do and a quarter way to express what I deem to be humor. I have always been bad at math.
There is escapism for sure but at the same time part of me just demands I write. Similar to the parts of me that demand I play music, demand I tell at least one person a year that Jesus loves them and that reminder that my one meal a day is just not healthy.
I want to write and so I do.
I want to write amazing prose, thrilling stories and use vocabulary words that even I am not sure of their meaning. So far the only of those I feel I somewhat accomplished with any real measure of absolute competency is the last one.
I would love to write songs, poems, thrilling stories but it seems like the only thing I can do that I won't delete or hide under my bed are these annoying essays about myself. Seriously, I feel like I am the worlds biggest narcissist (triple word score!) but I have no intention of stopping.
Writing this all out is therapeutic for sure, makes me feel special that I can string basic concepts of grammar together and well, also, even few months someone sends me an email about how me talking about 'such and such' was really neat and it inspired them or made them realize they were not alone.
That I admit is something that is cool and makes me want to keep writing. Sorta like how when I first read Donald Miller or Anne Lamott...you get introduced to these very likable, very witty and very human people that also happen to believe the crazy story about a first century carpenter Rabbi claiming to be God...and it makes sense/confuses them just as much as it makes sense/confuses me and even though they don't know me I feel a strong connection to their writings and their lives.
When you break things down to the bare essentials, few things in life are worth anything.
Very, very few.
One of these is supposed to be relationships but I'm not very comfortable with any of them. I really want to have them, I want to be closer to people, I want to love them and receive love...but...having the desire for normality just doesn't make it happen.
Having a relationship with God is like having this consummate relationship that sums up every other possible relationship a person could ever have with another human. Family, friendly, romantic and whatever else, it is this odd hodge podge of love that only makes sense when you stop to think that Yahweh is beyond our comprehension. Theology does a rather poor job at painting the picture of an infinite being when every thing said is impossibly insufficient and unable to really convey.
God is love.
A true and profound statement that is matched only in its utterly insufficient and near blasphemous summary.
God is.
Maybe a bit better but it doesn't reveal much.
The only reason we know about God is because he chooses to reveal himself through love, through life, through scripture and through his spirit. It doesn't make much sense but I doubt my cat ponders Quantum Physics all day either.
The point is...I write because I can't help it, I love God because I can't help it and that is okay. I don't understand all of it and if I said I did I would be a liar. Only a crazy person would claim to understand someone like Jesus. As C.S. Lewis rather wittily remarked in the Chronicles of Narnia "He isn't a tame lion".
I suppose that is a lesson I need to learn, acceptance.
Accepting I'm human and it is okay to actually be human.
Learning to accept love.
Learning I am lovable.
It is just a pity they didn't offer that as a major at the University of Mobile.
The same pain I felt a year ago, two years ago...it is all the same.
How much am I to blame for this? Is this my fault for not healing? Have I refused to allow any light inside of me, is it just because I love the darkness too much?
It's not like I sent out a sincerely humble request that I be born in the summer of 1986. Personally, I like to think that if I would have been told in advance I was coming to earth (assuming we exist in any form pre-earth form, but that is another migraine for another time that should only be taken in this current context for it's somewhat forthcoming comedic value)I would have gone kicking, screaming and grabbing onto anything bolted down, rather then take a one way ticket down here.
I am Matthew Adam Pike. The son of David and Pam, the grandson of a group of mostly dead people who of only one I was close to (Clovis, my mom's mom) and only one other I know of is alive (John, my dad's dad). I have a lot of aunts, uncles and a lot of cousins.
I was born in the great year of 1986 in a hospital in Birmingham and a couple of days later was brought to live in this small village called Jemison.
Honestly, I really doubt many people choose to live here willingly. They were either born here, ran out of gas/money while traveling, have no concept of a bigger world or are simply masochistic at heart. There could be the rare person that enjoys it here but I will simply chalk that up to mad rumors or cases of temporal insanity.
I went to the aptly named Jemison Elementary and High schools. Grew up around the same group of people most of my life as well, be it at school or church. I vaguely remember a few names here and there but that isn't the important part, what matters is that it was the typical small town in the south eastern section of the United States in the 1990's up until 2004.
The people lived out their confusing teenage thoughts full of grand schemes and impossible quantities of dramatic angst (of which I am only slightly guilty of both).
I'm not sure which is more amazing, the fact I managed to survive all these years of schooling while being such a nut case or the face I managed to do so in such a way that it actually looked like I knew what I was doing.
I myself endured horrors such as a five year long crush on a girl, awkward ideas as to what fashion was, somehow being the leader of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (when I have no athletic bone in my body and none of the main members were athletes. Seriously people, how did we do that for four years with no name change? Has anyone taken a marketing class since then?), a ridiculous amount of time in band only pretending to play saxophone (you try doing marching formations with a twenty lbs sax swinging from your neck and see if you can play a note), so many throughly bizarre experiences with religion, spirituality, church and the like...I mean I could go on but we all have lives like this.
We all have good and bad memories.
Some are amazing and cause our hearts to pound almost out of our chest...other memories make our faces burn and tears start to run out...bitter sweet moments of love and stabbing betrayals of the heart.
Things that make absolutely no sense and still we have to accept and move on.
Utterly bizarre contradictions of our own personal character and being and yet, yet we still live and we still have to push on.
Music, words and friendships are the three things that have kept me sane over the years.
Music.
I honestly have no clue what it is that makes me love music as desperately as I do. Really, I do not understand music theory all that well and have incredibly sub par skills, yet I was able to bluff my way in marching band for six years and supposedly I have been in a real band for the past nine years...not sure what those count for but it does count for something in my mind.
I have to listen to music and when I do it sweeps me away. I attach memories, thoughts, hopes, daydreams, my writings and everything in life to songs. There are certain songs I listen to when I am sad, when I am happy, when I cry, when I hurt, when I feel like being silly, when I need encouragement and when I just have to break down and realize how little of life really matters.
Nothing I have ever experience can come close to the extreme rush of playing on stage. The drymouth and pre-show shakes you get before every show, no matter how small or big the audience. The incredible beating of your heart as you take the stage and you hear the drums erupt like a canon, the aggressive riffs fly from the guitar and then you know, you just KNOW you are going to screw up your cue...but by some miracle of God you manage to slide your fingers up the neck of the bass and start to crank out some sort of deep rumbling throb that is nothing short of a purpose giving beat.
Why do I love playing so much, being in a band?
It is a way of having identity and fellowship. I am a bass player at heart. I see no reason to play music unless you are working with others, I have ALWAYS have trouble practicing without having others around, partly because I am lazy and partly because of the need for the collaboration. The need to feel wanted and needed. It is nice, it is easy and the attention itself is so addicting.
Having a personality that is easily addicted and that thrives off of highs and lows...it is easy to loose yourself and forget who you are...happens every day of my life.
Every now and then I just have this overwhelming urge to play music again, to find a way back on a stage...but honestly I have no clue how healthy that is anyway.
Friendships and Relationships.
Two loaded words in my vocabulary.
I have always claimed that to me, my friends are what I consider to be my true family. Which is something I have always done out of a deep seated fear of family. I didn't have a perfect life growing up but, who actually did? If I had to endure the personal Hell's that some of my friends have been through I would have died, no question.
Why do some people seem to suffer more then others? Is it simply reaping what we sow? Maybe just the fact we are all screw ups anyway and how the dice fall is how they fall?
I like to think I am a fairly tolerant person but when I hear fellow Christians go on excessively about how we all deserve pain, we all deserve punishment for our sins...part of me agrees but at the same time, no one deserves the pain in their life. No matter how horrible, how evil or how screwed up they are...we all deserve love, we are supposed to be made in the imago dei, image of God, and that alone makes someone worthy of love.
Call me crazy but all of the Adolf Hitlers and leaders of genocide in the history of the world might have be a bit less crazy if they were hugged as a kid. Maybe if instead of being told how much garbage they were, it might have helped them to know that they could be accepted and loved for who they are and not who they should be. We can get into playing the what if game all day but it is still just a thought. People have to be taught to hate just as much as they have to be taught selfless and sacrificing love.
I go into that tangent for a slight purpose, I am starting to think to believe that so much of human behavior is a mixture of the chemicals exploding in our brains mixed with however we grew up.
Even if I wouldn't have grown up in a rather bad home life, I would have been a very odd and very neurotic human being. Factor in the fact I grew up in a situation where I have never seen a sane marriage or what it means to be an adult male...we sort of start to have a pattern that I believe has drastically shaped my life without knowing it.
Something that has always baffled me is how people tend to apologize to me when I say my parents got divorced when I was three and then my dad died when I was eight (or something along those lines). Don't get me wrong, it sucks but if I were to film out every last memory I have of my dad, what an odd sounding video, it would take up maybe fifteen minutes tops.
Why would people apologize? I mean, sure it is nicer then someone just laughing at me, but at the same time it is almost like they are not just apologizing for the bad circumstances but apologizing for me missing something deep and unexplainable.
I mean, it is almost like there is a REASON why we have two parents, a mother and a dad. Some sort of mystical thing that happens when you have two parents raising a kid, novel idea in todays world.
I'm starting to think that part of the reason why I tend to be so...odd, terrified of love, scared of even reasonable commitment...is because of not having a dad, not really seeing how the right kind of relationship should work.
I seem to recall reading in Anne Lamott's book "Traveling Mercies" where she mentions experiments with lab rats. That the way to ensure a rat becomes insane is to frequently and randomly change the variables in any experiments involving it. It eventually will get to a point where the rat is terrified and neurotic, it doesn't know if stepping on the switch will give it food or electrocute it and...as odd as this is I relate well to that story.
Every relationship in my life is like a switch in a rat cage. I step on it and (bearing in mind this is how my mind views things)either I get a rewarding and tasty piece of cheese (which would be an indulgent and easy stroke of my ego, some sort of affirmation of acceptance, a hug, affection or whatever) or I get a shock of the lifetime and it might be these horrible situations but...more often then naught, it is merely just dealing with hearing a valid criticism, someone loosing their temper, hearing about how disappointed with me someone is, etc.
The huge headache for me is that I am not sure how to separate the good from the bad. What I mean is that there gets to be a point where relationships become more then superficial and it terrifies me deeply. We're talking absolute fear among other things...and then it just gets to the point where I cannot tell the good from the bad. Things become really jumbled in my head and I start uncontrollably flinching when I'm touched or I jump at loud noises...weird things but it is a deep seated part of me.
So deep that I am not sure where any of it ends or begins. Could this be part of me that was made when I was born into a family with only superficial bonds?
What do you do with this? I have always felt excessively guilty about not loving my family more but to me the easiest thing is to just not care. It is easier to lock myself in my mind and segregate myself from my surroundings then it is to actually live with others. There are a lot of parts of me that no one has seen and that never want to be seen by another human.
The biggest crime anyone dating me has done is simply wanting to get to know me and unknowingly a point is reached where they hit these incredibly sensitive nerves and I responded by leaping about twelve feet in the air screaming about lemons and upon landing I would dive out the nearest window ranting about how the British were coming and Paul Revere needed to be warned.
I promise I'm not crazy.
I'm just special, in ways that only a mother and Jesus could truly appreciate.
Writing.
Why do i write?
The basic math I can figure is such:
A quarter therapeutic, a quarter for reasons of keeping my sanity, a quarter for self gratification, a quarter for having fun, a quarter because I do not know what else to do and a quarter way to express what I deem to be humor. I have always been bad at math.
There is escapism for sure but at the same time part of me just demands I write. Similar to the parts of me that demand I play music, demand I tell at least one person a year that Jesus loves them and that reminder that my one meal a day is just not healthy.
I want to write and so I do.
I want to write amazing prose, thrilling stories and use vocabulary words that even I am not sure of their meaning. So far the only of those I feel I somewhat accomplished with any real measure of absolute competency is the last one.
I would love to write songs, poems, thrilling stories but it seems like the only thing I can do that I won't delete or hide under my bed are these annoying essays about myself. Seriously, I feel like I am the worlds biggest narcissist (triple word score!) but I have no intention of stopping.
Writing this all out is therapeutic for sure, makes me feel special that I can string basic concepts of grammar together and well, also, even few months someone sends me an email about how me talking about 'such and such' was really neat and it inspired them or made them realize they were not alone.
That I admit is something that is cool and makes me want to keep writing. Sorta like how when I first read Donald Miller or Anne Lamott...you get introduced to these very likable, very witty and very human people that also happen to believe the crazy story about a first century carpenter Rabbi claiming to be God...and it makes sense/confuses them just as much as it makes sense/confuses me and even though they don't know me I feel a strong connection to their writings and their lives.
When you break things down to the bare essentials, few things in life are worth anything.
Very, very few.
One of these is supposed to be relationships but I'm not very comfortable with any of them. I really want to have them, I want to be closer to people, I want to love them and receive love...but...having the desire for normality just doesn't make it happen.
Having a relationship with God is like having this consummate relationship that sums up every other possible relationship a person could ever have with another human. Family, friendly, romantic and whatever else, it is this odd hodge podge of love that only makes sense when you stop to think that Yahweh is beyond our comprehension. Theology does a rather poor job at painting the picture of an infinite being when every thing said is impossibly insufficient and unable to really convey.
God is love.
A true and profound statement that is matched only in its utterly insufficient and near blasphemous summary.
God is.
Maybe a bit better but it doesn't reveal much.
The only reason we know about God is because he chooses to reveal himself through love, through life, through scripture and through his spirit. It doesn't make much sense but I doubt my cat ponders Quantum Physics all day either.
The point is...I write because I can't help it, I love God because I can't help it and that is okay. I don't understand all of it and if I said I did I would be a liar. Only a crazy person would claim to understand someone like Jesus. As C.S. Lewis rather wittily remarked in the Chronicles of Narnia "He isn't a tame lion".
I suppose that is a lesson I need to learn, acceptance.
Accepting I'm human and it is okay to actually be human.
Learning to accept love.
Learning I am lovable.
It is just a pity they didn't offer that as a major at the University of Mobile.
I won't even pretend I understand just what it is you are doing.
You know, it almost seems like there is some method behind this absolute insanity, beyond this pain and this hopelessness.
What does it take to get your attention? Prayer? Kind words? Screaming? Whoring my body and soul out to every last sin and desire I have? Breaking my last threads of sanity and dignity?
Do you want me to beg? To plead? To just acknowledge how much of a screw up I am?
I am not sure who I hate more right now, you or me.
I am in pain right now, do you even give a damn? Do you flinch when you look down from your throne and see me in pain? Does it concern you at all, in the very least that I hate life itself? That I curse and loathe the day I was born? That I would have been better to never have been born? That if you simply wanted me to suffer, could we not have forgo this incredibly disgusting life of dwelling in a body and you could have just thrown my soul into just whatever Hell is?
I ask but I know in advance I will not be getting any kind of answer that is actually tangible, something that could actually make me feel better.
How about a hug? How about just a fucking hug? Is it too much to ask? Is it just to damn much to ask of someone as infinite and holy as you? To just ask for you to please crawl down into this mud, into this disgusting and revolting life and just hold me? Is it too much?
I know you are supposed to love me and of all these untouchable promises but what about now? If there is only pain, then what the fuck is the point?
I hate you just as much as I love you. There is so much rage in my heart right now, so much uncontrolable hate in me.
I'm sick of cursing and using bad words, I'm tired of hurting others, I'm sick of being someone I am not. I hate my very being but I so desperately want to be accepted and love for just whoever I am.
Are my tears meaningless too?
Is anything of my existence worth anything?
If this is all my life is going to be, kill me now before I have to do it myself.
You know, it almost seems like there is some method behind this absolute insanity, beyond this pain and this hopelessness.
What does it take to get your attention? Prayer? Kind words? Screaming? Whoring my body and soul out to every last sin and desire I have? Breaking my last threads of sanity and dignity?
Do you want me to beg? To plead? To just acknowledge how much of a screw up I am?
I am not sure who I hate more right now, you or me.
I am in pain right now, do you even give a damn? Do you flinch when you look down from your throne and see me in pain? Does it concern you at all, in the very least that I hate life itself? That I curse and loathe the day I was born? That I would have been better to never have been born? That if you simply wanted me to suffer, could we not have forgo this incredibly disgusting life of dwelling in a body and you could have just thrown my soul into just whatever Hell is?
I ask but I know in advance I will not be getting any kind of answer that is actually tangible, something that could actually make me feel better.
How about a hug? How about just a fucking hug? Is it too much to ask? Is it just to damn much to ask of someone as infinite and holy as you? To just ask for you to please crawl down into this mud, into this disgusting and revolting life and just hold me? Is it too much?
I know you are supposed to love me and of all these untouchable promises but what about now? If there is only pain, then what the fuck is the point?
I hate you just as much as I love you. There is so much rage in my heart right now, so much uncontrolable hate in me.
I'm sick of cursing and using bad words, I'm tired of hurting others, I'm sick of being someone I am not. I hate my very being but I so desperately want to be accepted and love for just whoever I am.
Are my tears meaningless too?
Is anything of my existence worth anything?
If this is all my life is going to be, kill me now before I have to do it myself.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Nothing works to shut voices inside me up.
I'm tired of being so human that it hurts and I am full of physical, mental, spiritual and emotional pain.
I wish I wasn't so confused about who I am, who others are, so awkward about sexuality, so awkward about just being myself...and being around people and even knowing them.
I get so frustrated I want to scream.
I'm okay really...but it is so hard to just be ME. To exist as I am for my own sake, even with knowing a deeper love...I just long to be accepted and wanted for who I am.
I'm tired of being so human that it hurts and I am full of physical, mental, spiritual and emotional pain.
I wish I wasn't so confused about who I am, who others are, so awkward about sexuality, so awkward about just being myself...and being around people and even knowing them.
I get so frustrated I want to scream.
I'm okay really...but it is so hard to just be ME. To exist as I am for my own sake, even with knowing a deeper love...I just long to be accepted and wanted for who I am.
I have performed my good deeds for the next few decades so I think today will be a day off from my normal moaning and groaning. I'm going to go lay down after having a rather painful MRI and I am going to play Fallout 2 on my laptop.
I am going to enjoy the intricate plot and corny pop culture references. I am going to scratch behind the ears of a crying neurotic cat and hopefully when my best friend comes over we are going to play Halo and blast aliens apart until our collective fingers bleed.
Goodbye stress and hello virtual ultraviolence.
I am going to enjoy the intricate plot and corny pop culture references. I am going to scratch behind the ears of a crying neurotic cat and hopefully when my best friend comes over we are going to play Halo and blast aliens apart until our collective fingers bleed.
Goodbye stress and hello virtual ultraviolence.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Restructured
These walls,
hold their secrets.
These walls,
hold their breath as so they may hear.
Anemic, they are brittle.
This hollow shell acting as my guard.
I can't see beyond my own blindness,
these tattered and broken walls.
Yellowing paper and chipped paint
hug the floor cheerfully.
Aged like cheap wine.
hold their secrets.
These walls,
hold their breath as so they may hear.
Anemic, they are brittle.
This hollow shell acting as my guard.
I can't see beyond my own blindness,
these tattered and broken walls.
Yellowing paper and chipped paint
hug the floor cheerfully.
Aged like cheap wine.
Friday, September 5, 2008
Morning Day Dreams
I'm quite tired, physically and mentally.
I avoided certain drugs and...well I guess it isn't much of a surprise that I was not able to sleep.
Hmm...sensing a pattern here perhaps?
I'm confused.
The heart, mind and soul all seem to pull in their own respective directions.
I supposed my heart would be a base desire.
My mind is my intellect I have gathered through knowledge and experience.
My soul is the eternal essence that gives eternal purpose to the flesh body.
I'm guessing maybe that deep down they may not like each other very much...partly because they insist on being in such constant conflict...plus the other aspects of my being, being screwed up even more.
Example:
Loneliness.
I have been ill, a lot, lately and because of that my physical contact with humans has diminished greatly. It was hard enough before hand but the more I am alone the more I feel that I have every right to be by myself and to simply ignore others.
God knows how much of a prick I am to my family, simply for them committing the unforgivable sin of 'checking up on me'. It has gotten to the point where there isn't much conversation that I am involved in...but I think I even got my mom to just stop making basic inquires into my life...simply because of me being so short with her...I hate how much of a jerk I can be without even thinking about it.
In my defense, I just do not see how they could not notice the physical and mental anguish I am in, almost constantly at that. I mean, I can pick up small signs from people I do not even know...and considering there is at least a fragment of gene pool shared here...is there just no perception or no desire to perceive?
I just lack so many of the similar thoughts and ideas of others...how is this for a life plan...
Sleep.
Emotional stability.
Being healthy and sick free.
Sounds dreamy.
I avoided certain drugs and...well I guess it isn't much of a surprise that I was not able to sleep.
Hmm...sensing a pattern here perhaps?
I'm confused.
The heart, mind and soul all seem to pull in their own respective directions.
I supposed my heart would be a base desire.
My mind is my intellect I have gathered through knowledge and experience.
My soul is the eternal essence that gives eternal purpose to the flesh body.
I'm guessing maybe that deep down they may not like each other very much...partly because they insist on being in such constant conflict...plus the other aspects of my being, being screwed up even more.
Example:
Loneliness.
I have been ill, a lot, lately and because of that my physical contact with humans has diminished greatly. It was hard enough before hand but the more I am alone the more I feel that I have every right to be by myself and to simply ignore others.
God knows how much of a prick I am to my family, simply for them committing the unforgivable sin of 'checking up on me'. It has gotten to the point where there isn't much conversation that I am involved in...but I think I even got my mom to just stop making basic inquires into my life...simply because of me being so short with her...I hate how much of a jerk I can be without even thinking about it.
In my defense, I just do not see how they could not notice the physical and mental anguish I am in, almost constantly at that. I mean, I can pick up small signs from people I do not even know...and considering there is at least a fragment of gene pool shared here...is there just no perception or no desire to perceive?
I just lack so many of the similar thoughts and ideas of others...how is this for a life plan...
Sleep.
Emotional stability.
Being healthy and sick free.
Sounds dreamy.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
More then ever I think the person I loathe and fear the most is myself.
If I ever stopped hating and degrading myself enough to realize how beautiful of a creation I am...I might actually stop with the abuse, the rampant digestion of impulse...I might actually begin to realize I am not the God I make myself.
It is so pitifully ironic.
By hating myself and placing myself as being such an absolute worthless amount of scum,I am in fact setting myself up as the king of my world, the prince of my ego and the sole being of any importance in this world.
I am me and me is I, if that makes sense but at the end of the day I am an odd mixture of temporal organic matter and eternal ethereal soul. Nothing and everything about my actions will last and ring out through eternity and across this wasteland we commonly, yet incorrectly, think of as our home.
Nothing is more eternal then the prejudices we set up against ourselves and those around us, they exist eternally because of how invisible the thoughts and habits become. These habitual thoughts of disdain flow under the radar and consume the self until the personal ego becomes first and foremost, in and of itself in a sort of totality way.
If I ever stopped hating and degrading myself enough to realize how beautiful of a creation I am...I might actually stop with the abuse, the rampant digestion of impulse...I might actually begin to realize I am not the God I make myself.
It is so pitifully ironic.
By hating myself and placing myself as being such an absolute worthless amount of scum,I am in fact setting myself up as the king of my world, the prince of my ego and the sole being of any importance in this world.
I am me and me is I, if that makes sense but at the end of the day I am an odd mixture of temporal organic matter and eternal ethereal soul. Nothing and everything about my actions will last and ring out through eternity and across this wasteland we commonly, yet incorrectly, think of as our home.
Nothing is more eternal then the prejudices we set up against ourselves and those around us, they exist eternally because of how invisible the thoughts and habits become. These habitual thoughts of disdain flow under the radar and consume the self until the personal ego becomes first and foremost, in and of itself in a sort of totality way.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Outspoken Stains
The less I have seen the more I want.
The more I desire the more I need.
Is there no way any of this ends?
How many circles can be drawn in and of themselves?
I'm so sick of this seclusion,
this poor body that cannot do anything outside of lust.
I'm sick of this meandering corpse,
useful for nothing but sin.
I'm exhausted from trying.
I no longer care.
I do not give a damn if I die here tonight.
All I have ever needed is You and now I have nothing.
Every screaming whisper,
every broken gasp of air,
is it supposed to be for You
but I doubt you can find anything in nothing.
My love I am breaking further then I have ever broke.
The lies burn in my soul like fire.
My bones ache from the desires I have spurned on.
Every last breath, every scream.
Every trite attempt at life brings nothing,
nothing but me further from absolute truth.
I tired of this game.
I need sanity.
I need hope.
I need Your love in this wasteland of the soul.
I refuse to pretend I am alright when nothing is.
The writing is on the wall,
it's in blood.
The end is nigh
and the air is alive with my demise.
But I will hope in the eternal.
I will not die just yet.
Every last second of this life will be an explosion.
Rage, seething and boiling over in hate for this waste of life.
The culmination of a life brewed in hate.
Stewing and waiting to be unleashed,
my moment is at hand.
The more I desire the more I need.
Is there no way any of this ends?
How many circles can be drawn in and of themselves?
I'm so sick of this seclusion,
this poor body that cannot do anything outside of lust.
I'm sick of this meandering corpse,
useful for nothing but sin.
I'm exhausted from trying.
I no longer care.
I do not give a damn if I die here tonight.
All I have ever needed is You and now I have nothing.
Every screaming whisper,
every broken gasp of air,
is it supposed to be for You
but I doubt you can find anything in nothing.
My love I am breaking further then I have ever broke.
The lies burn in my soul like fire.
My bones ache from the desires I have spurned on.
Every last breath, every scream.
Every trite attempt at life brings nothing,
nothing but me further from absolute truth.
I tired of this game.
I need sanity.
I need hope.
I need Your love in this wasteland of the soul.
I refuse to pretend I am alright when nothing is.
The writing is on the wall,
it's in blood.
The end is nigh
and the air is alive with my demise.
But I will hope in the eternal.
I will not die just yet.
Every last second of this life will be an explosion.
Rage, seething and boiling over in hate for this waste of life.
The culmination of a life brewed in hate.
Stewing and waiting to be unleashed,
my moment is at hand.
Crooked Heart
The willing Stagnation of my own heart grieves me.
Much too soon I abandon hope.
Much too often I have given you nothing.
Spitting on blood given for free.
I'm addicted to myself,
a junkie shivering in the cold.
My next hit whatever my eyes see,
whatever my lust desires.
These damnable creatures mock me.
Leering eyes and rotten teeth,
their presence a stench from Hell.
Try as I might, nothing frees me.
I hear mocking cries,
"Save yourself"
Damnable, yet irresistible lies.
Accurate forgeries.
The only one forcing me to drink from this dirt
is myself.
The caretaker of my own lust fueled madness is I.
The captain of this ship.
The breaker of oaths.
The creator of this misery is myself and I alone.
My whore, this ever cheaper soul,
offered yet still to these fleeting fads.
Passing glitter and stardust that offer nothing.
It's enough to drive one mad.
Politicking and practicing false innuendos,
selling fools good they have no intention of buying.
This has all been about me.
Much too soon I abandon hope.
Much too often I have given you nothing.
Spitting on blood given for free.
I'm addicted to myself,
a junkie shivering in the cold.
My next hit whatever my eyes see,
whatever my lust desires.
These damnable creatures mock me.
Leering eyes and rotten teeth,
their presence a stench from Hell.
Try as I might, nothing frees me.
I hear mocking cries,
"Save yourself"
Damnable, yet irresistible lies.
Accurate forgeries.
The only one forcing me to drink from this dirt
is myself.
The caretaker of my own lust fueled madness is I.
The captain of this ship.
The breaker of oaths.
The creator of this misery is myself and I alone.
My whore, this ever cheaper soul,
offered yet still to these fleeting fads.
Passing glitter and stardust that offer nothing.
It's enough to drive one mad.
Politicking and practicing false innuendos,
selling fools good they have no intention of buying.
This has all been about me.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
On Church
So...I was born in and have lived in the South East U.S. my entire life, to be more specific Alabama, the belt of the metaphorical Bible Belt. Supposedly the only thing that is more sacred then Jesus down here is football and believe me does it ever show.
I grew up in the church and at an early age felt the Father calling me to serve in ministry somewhere and somehow...and so I did, just jumping at every possibility along the way. Somehow I was a fourteen year old kid leading Bible studies and helping lead a youth group...quite surreal looking back but flash forward about three years and you will find one of the more defining moments of my life.
By this time my closest group of friends are involved in church. We have a band that plays for church services and even Wednesday mornings at our public school. We play two times, sometimes three times a week and I'm able to preach about twice a week, sometimes more.
It was incredibly exciting and absolutely terrifying at the same time to see people respond. Some people would come to the Wednesday meetings just once or maybe stop by for a minute but you could just look in their eyes and see something connect with what you are playing, speaking about or praying about...it's not like people were falling over themselves in the aisle but something was going on...people were responding to the message.
Eventually the people stopped coming to the meeting in the auditorium and so we went to the people. We took acoustic guitars and a very modified version of street preaching. That was even more bizarre because we had about fifteen minutes most weeks but still people would stop and listen to our little Jesus freak show.
Looking back I'm not sure if we did more positive or negative but the focus of the message week after week was 'Jesus love you and you don't have to be perfect or religious. He just love you for yourself."...so i am praying and hoping we did more positive. Sometimes I think the church would do better to just shut up and give hugs...we don't wouldn't even have to wear tacky t-shirts either, just give our non conditional hugs...it's just a thought you know.
Eventually graduation came and exhilaration was as high as ever. College was coming in the fall but much had to be done, and by that I mean the summer mission trip. What I felt going into this trip was that to be my last youth group mission trip, and really it would come to be the catalyst that launched me into the next stage of my life and others... well in some cases completely destroying some peoples faith in God and still affirmed some people's faith in their little 'god(s)'.
I could spend hours on this one subject but I'll try to be as brief as possible. A good friend of ours essentially tried to confront a higher up in the church about what our friend perceived as sin and that backlashed into a huge firing and the killing of our youth group and band. The Tuesday after the mission trip I still remember calling all of the guys in the band and we were all confused and had not idea what the heck was going on.
The next day (Wednesday night) I gave the resignation letter of my friend to the youth group and resigned my position trying to encourage the youth to go somewhere else. It's funny because even though it's only been five years it feels like it has been a life time. I'll bump into some of the youth from time to time when I am in town...and it honestly it breaks my heart to see how some of them are doing. They haven't been able to find a place they can call home because of fears, doubt and the general mess of things.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that seeing the corruption in the church essentially killed this naivety I had about American Christendom. I use to think that stuff like CCM, Christian Book Stores, tacky concerts, street preaching, campaigning and the like were how the world was going to be changed...that Jesus was going to be so awesome and reach down and use these great ideas of ours to do this wonderful miracles but...it's so far from the truth that it is almost sad.
All these activities and programs are nothing more then hot air, static buzzing in the ear of God.
"GOD's Message: "Heaven's my throne, earth is my footstool. What sort of house could you build for me? What holiday spot reserve for me? I made all this! I own all this!" GOD's Decree. "But there is something I'm looking for: a person simple and plain, reverently responsive to what I say.
"Your acts of worship are acts of sin: Your sacrificial slaughter of the ox is no different from murdering the neighbor; Your offerings for worship, no different from dumping pig's blood on the altar; Your presentation of memorial gifts, no different from honoring a no-god idol. You choose self-serving worship, you delight in self-centered worship--disgusting! Well, I choose to expose your nonsense and let you realize your worst fears, Because when I invited you, you ignored me; when I spoke to you, you brushed me off. You did the very things I exposed as evil, you chose what I hate." "
-Isaiah 66:1-4
I think it's funny in a very sad way how the modern Church so perfectly parallels the nation of Israel from the Old Testament times. As a whole the American church is just as fat, just as spoiled, just as immature and just as apathetic. We get so caught up in how shiny and pretty our religion is and we forget the most important part...that there is a whole world we were meant to change...not by our stupid little Jesus pep rallies but by doing what Jesus did and getting in the mud and gutters of this world giving out love freely and pulling people out of the Hell they are living in...or something like that. It is not like this is some kind of exact science...that is where another one of my problems come in.
We go on and on about how we're the 'elect' and 'chosen ones' but forget that we are here for a reason. Israel was set up by God with the intention of being a light for the world...but instead they became drunk off their own religious awe and God destroyed their temple and nation over that.
Digressing...
Eventually I went to college, this story in and of itself could be another hundred pages but I'll try to be brief: "I was depressed and it sucked."
Christian education can bleed the gospel of life faster then anything else. This is coming from the guy who has a bachelor degree in Jesus and learned more from simply reading the Bible all the way through in high school, then in the majority of my theology classes, seriously. The most helpful college classes I had were my philosophy classes taught by the professor thrown out of the religion department for being to 'liberal'. At least in those I was taught to think critically and how to do a bit more then 'baaaah' like a good little sheep.
Christian education has good intentions but far to often gets caught up in PETTY and USELESS arguments that don't matter either in the short or long term. "Oh nos! Doctrinal purity! Orthodoxy or death! Systematic theology or the LIBERALS might kill us!"
Once again...those ideas are not bad by themselves but when they take precedence over 'knowing God and making God known', then something is amiss and believe me it is. Christians are not here to wage a culture war or bring heaven to earth. The basic gist if for us to learn how to love God and learn how to love each other through extreme trial and error. Bloody noses, fist fights, arguments and through the possible use of swear words (depending how you feel about those kind of things of course).
It's not pretty but it's authentic and real and my God the thought of actually being able to argue and treat other Christians as ACTUAL brothers and sisters makes me want to cry...actually fighting among one another but then learning how to live with one another...that's another way of looking at the gospel.
"In a word, what I'm saying is, Grow up. You're kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you."
-Jesus, Matthew 5:48
Let's see...covered being called to ministry, shameless self promotion for bands (Woo! Go Forged in the Fire and Forgotten Purpose, buy all of our non-existent albums!), covered college, what next? Ah...the present.
So then, what now?
I have no freaking clue.
Apparently I found out yesterday I'm starting back classes next week, if the school will be kind enough to accept the money.
I'm still dealing with not liking church or Christians. It's hard to be a minister and hate the church, true story I assure you.
To a certain degree I'm trying but not really trying. I'm applying broadly for certain churches to see if they will hire me and I've been trying to kick a struggling Bible study I've been hosting in the pants...but ultimately these things will not change the world.
To quote non other then the Protestant Pope, Bono himself:
"This morning I fell out of bed
when I woke up to what he had said.
Everything's crazy but I'm too lazy to lie.
And what am I to do
Just tell me what am I suppose to say
I can't change the world
But I can change the world in me
I Rejoice"
-U2, "Rejoice"
Crazy notion but I think it will work (the antidepressants help as well). I can't change the world, I'm far too weak willed to even change myself. What I can do however is determine to seek the Father while he can be found, to do the whole humbling myself so that He can be exalted in me thing. I hate how trite that sounds but it's the truth, believe me if there was a more obscure and confusing way to put it I would have.
Sometimes things are much more simple then we would care to admit, sometimes they are frighteningly simple.
Sometimes we just have to finally break down and let ourselves be loved.
"I'm no longer calling you servants because servants don't understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I've named you friends because I've let you in on everything I've heard from the Father. "You didn't choose me, remember; I chose you, and put you in the world to bear fruit, fruit that won't spoil. As fruit bearers, whatever you ask the Father in relation to me, he gives you.
"But remember the root command: Love one another. "
-Jesus, John 15-17
I grew up in the church and at an early age felt the Father calling me to serve in ministry somewhere and somehow...and so I did, just jumping at every possibility along the way. Somehow I was a fourteen year old kid leading Bible studies and helping lead a youth group...quite surreal looking back but flash forward about three years and you will find one of the more defining moments of my life.
By this time my closest group of friends are involved in church. We have a band that plays for church services and even Wednesday mornings at our public school. We play two times, sometimes three times a week and I'm able to preach about twice a week, sometimes more.
It was incredibly exciting and absolutely terrifying at the same time to see people respond. Some people would come to the Wednesday meetings just once or maybe stop by for a minute but you could just look in their eyes and see something connect with what you are playing, speaking about or praying about...it's not like people were falling over themselves in the aisle but something was going on...people were responding to the message.
Eventually the people stopped coming to the meeting in the auditorium and so we went to the people. We took acoustic guitars and a very modified version of street preaching. That was even more bizarre because we had about fifteen minutes most weeks but still people would stop and listen to our little Jesus freak show.
Looking back I'm not sure if we did more positive or negative but the focus of the message week after week was 'Jesus love you and you don't have to be perfect or religious. He just love you for yourself."...so i am praying and hoping we did more positive. Sometimes I think the church would do better to just shut up and give hugs...we don't wouldn't even have to wear tacky t-shirts either, just give our non conditional hugs...it's just a thought you know.
Eventually graduation came and exhilaration was as high as ever. College was coming in the fall but much had to be done, and by that I mean the summer mission trip. What I felt going into this trip was that to be my last youth group mission trip, and really it would come to be the catalyst that launched me into the next stage of my life and others... well in some cases completely destroying some peoples faith in God and still affirmed some people's faith in their little 'god(s)'.
I could spend hours on this one subject but I'll try to be as brief as possible. A good friend of ours essentially tried to confront a higher up in the church about what our friend perceived as sin and that backlashed into a huge firing and the killing of our youth group and band. The Tuesday after the mission trip I still remember calling all of the guys in the band and we were all confused and had not idea what the heck was going on.
The next day (Wednesday night) I gave the resignation letter of my friend to the youth group and resigned my position trying to encourage the youth to go somewhere else. It's funny because even though it's only been five years it feels like it has been a life time. I'll bump into some of the youth from time to time when I am in town...and it honestly it breaks my heart to see how some of them are doing. They haven't been able to find a place they can call home because of fears, doubt and the general mess of things.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that seeing the corruption in the church essentially killed this naivety I had about American Christendom. I use to think that stuff like CCM, Christian Book Stores, tacky concerts, street preaching, campaigning and the like were how the world was going to be changed...that Jesus was going to be so awesome and reach down and use these great ideas of ours to do this wonderful miracles but...it's so far from the truth that it is almost sad.
All these activities and programs are nothing more then hot air, static buzzing in the ear of God.
"GOD's Message: "Heaven's my throne, earth is my footstool. What sort of house could you build for me? What holiday spot reserve for me? I made all this! I own all this!" GOD's Decree. "But there is something I'm looking for: a person simple and plain, reverently responsive to what I say.
"Your acts of worship are acts of sin: Your sacrificial slaughter of the ox is no different from murdering the neighbor; Your offerings for worship, no different from dumping pig's blood on the altar; Your presentation of memorial gifts, no different from honoring a no-god idol. You choose self-serving worship, you delight in self-centered worship--disgusting! Well, I choose to expose your nonsense and let you realize your worst fears, Because when I invited you, you ignored me; when I spoke to you, you brushed me off. You did the very things I exposed as evil, you chose what I hate." "
-Isaiah 66:1-4
I think it's funny in a very sad way how the modern Church so perfectly parallels the nation of Israel from the Old Testament times. As a whole the American church is just as fat, just as spoiled, just as immature and just as apathetic. We get so caught up in how shiny and pretty our religion is and we forget the most important part...that there is a whole world we were meant to change...not by our stupid little Jesus pep rallies but by doing what Jesus did and getting in the mud and gutters of this world giving out love freely and pulling people out of the Hell they are living in...or something like that. It is not like this is some kind of exact science...that is where another one of my problems come in.
We go on and on about how we're the 'elect' and 'chosen ones' but forget that we are here for a reason. Israel was set up by God with the intention of being a light for the world...but instead they became drunk off their own religious awe and God destroyed their temple and nation over that.
Digressing...
Eventually I went to college, this story in and of itself could be another hundred pages but I'll try to be brief: "I was depressed and it sucked."
Christian education can bleed the gospel of life faster then anything else. This is coming from the guy who has a bachelor degree in Jesus and learned more from simply reading the Bible all the way through in high school, then in the majority of my theology classes, seriously. The most helpful college classes I had were my philosophy classes taught by the professor thrown out of the religion department for being to 'liberal'. At least in those I was taught to think critically and how to do a bit more then 'baaaah' like a good little sheep.
Christian education has good intentions but far to often gets caught up in PETTY and USELESS arguments that don't matter either in the short or long term. "Oh nos! Doctrinal purity! Orthodoxy or death! Systematic theology or the LIBERALS might kill us!"
Once again...those ideas are not bad by themselves but when they take precedence over 'knowing God and making God known', then something is amiss and believe me it is. Christians are not here to wage a culture war or bring heaven to earth. The basic gist if for us to learn how to love God and learn how to love each other through extreme trial and error. Bloody noses, fist fights, arguments and through the possible use of swear words (depending how you feel about those kind of things of course).
It's not pretty but it's authentic and real and my God the thought of actually being able to argue and treat other Christians as ACTUAL brothers and sisters makes me want to cry...actually fighting among one another but then learning how to live with one another...that's another way of looking at the gospel.
"In a word, what I'm saying is, Grow up. You're kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you."
-Jesus, Matthew 5:48
Let's see...covered being called to ministry, shameless self promotion for bands (Woo! Go Forged in the Fire and Forgotten Purpose, buy all of our non-existent albums!), covered college, what next? Ah...the present.
So then, what now?
I have no freaking clue.
Apparently I found out yesterday I'm starting back classes next week, if the school will be kind enough to accept the money.
I'm still dealing with not liking church or Christians. It's hard to be a minister and hate the church, true story I assure you.
To a certain degree I'm trying but not really trying. I'm applying broadly for certain churches to see if they will hire me and I've been trying to kick a struggling Bible study I've been hosting in the pants...but ultimately these things will not change the world.
To quote non other then the Protestant Pope, Bono himself:
"This morning I fell out of bed
when I woke up to what he had said.
Everything's crazy but I'm too lazy to lie.
And what am I to do
Just tell me what am I suppose to say
I can't change the world
But I can change the world in me
I Rejoice"
-U2, "Rejoice"
Crazy notion but I think it will work (the antidepressants help as well). I can't change the world, I'm far too weak willed to even change myself. What I can do however is determine to seek the Father while he can be found, to do the whole humbling myself so that He can be exalted in me thing. I hate how trite that sounds but it's the truth, believe me if there was a more obscure and confusing way to put it I would have.
Sometimes things are much more simple then we would care to admit, sometimes they are frighteningly simple.
Sometimes we just have to finally break down and let ourselves be loved.
"I'm no longer calling you servants because servants don't understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I've named you friends because I've let you in on everything I've heard from the Father. "You didn't choose me, remember; I chose you, and put you in the world to bear fruit, fruit that won't spoil. As fruit bearers, whatever you ask the Father in relation to me, he gives you.
"But remember the root command: Love one another. "
-Jesus, John 15-17
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