Psalm 150

Praise the Lord!

Praise God in his sanctuary;
praise him in his mighty heaven!
Praise him for his mighty works;
praise his unequaled greatness!
Praise him with a blast of the ram’s horn;
praise him with the lyre and harp!
Praise him with the tambourine and dancing;
praise him with strings and flutes!
Praise him with a clash of cymbals;
praise him with loud clanging cymbals.
Let everything that breathes sing praises to the Lord!

Praise the Lord!
-Psalm 150:1-6


I (mostly) read through the Psalms once again.
It has been an insane summer and fall.

I feel different and think I am no longer the same person I was at the start of summer. For better or for worse it has been a period of time...seconds, minutes, hours, days...just flowing and pulling at me...demanding change.

I really, really, really do not feel like praising right now.
Praising you in the pain is hard.
Even though I may be healing...pain is everywhere it seems.

I can breathe.
I do not really know what else to do...except smile and laugh through the anguish as the best I can.

You are good.
Even when I don't want to admit it.
Even when I am just laying here hurting so much.
I don't have sufficient words.

Life, life, life, life...

What more can I say or do?
I feel so distant and close at the same time.
I have missed so much class that I can barely believe tomorrow is October.

Another three months and it'll be Christmas...another six or seven months and I'll be done with school here.

I want to love you, even though I feel like I keep loosing my path with every step I take...but here I am, still alive.

Every choice, every decision, every time you have rescued me has brought me closer on this path...closer to you...closer to how things can or may be...good and evil, life and death, love and loss...everything is spinning and falling further out of sync as sin continues to mangle and deteriorate everything.

And yet...this is for the good?
I don't know how...I just know that it is truth, something I can't deny because it has engulfed me and turned me inside and out...making me have love and compassion where there was nothing but a desert of apathy.

I'm afraid I am becoming a darker, much more cynical and apathetic monster because of the pain...the sin of life...yet you break this heart of stone every time I try to push you out.

I think that alone is worth praising.
I have nothing to offer you except my wicked heart.
It is a gift, an offering far too small.
Yet, you will have me?
Messiah born in Bethlehem,
You have seen my words, my deeds and actions;
paltry things
always the bare minimum
while I beg you
to feed my hunger
and lusts of my heart.

You see the mercenary
the bastard I try to be
and You refuse
to let me
simply fall apart
and fade into the shadows.

A Cosmic Meddler
But the one calling me
breaking me
and pouring life
into my soul.

You have surveyed the desolation
and the ever spreading wasteland
that my soul
makes itself to be
just to hide from love
and flee from maturity.

Would any one of us,
any single one of us
have agreed to this
given a choice?
Were the fallen angels
found wanting
because they saw the horror
and gave into despair?

I hunger and thirst
but not for righteousness
as much as my own way.
The means and paths I walk,
while pretending to be.

Again, again and again...
When will the cycle stop?
Will this be the now and then
forever and forever?

I just...want to find peace.
Rest in you.
Find love in you.

I am not really sure what to make of today.

Thoughts, thoughts, thoughts...so many thoughts.
So little time for implementation.

Again, Again, Again

Why bother?
That needs an answer.
No more dodging the question.
No more hiding behind people.
No more of the shadows.

Just another cut
more feedback
coming through your speakers
as you look dumbfounded,
I guess the world wasn't your oyster?
Maybe it'll open up
and you can collect the dust
that was never a pearl.

But it's not like it's different,
nothing except repetitions
as I gaze out the window
of the concrete tomb
I call my home away from home.
Never will the night last,
but that doesn't mean much
except that most of us won't make it out.

But Home,
sweet and beautiful Home.
The one place I have never seen
but the place I have been looking
and crawling to
all of my life.

I may spend all my time,
waste all my blood and
shed my tears
but I will never bow to you.
Silly little wooden idols
you lost my attention
just as soon as everything happened.

Digressions

What to know
what to see
what to feel
what to be
what to care
what to have
what to touch
what to hate
what to love
what to destroy
what to build
and everything you wanted me to be.

Shallow anorexic shadows dance
just vapid images on the wall
as the light reflects
and illuminates
making us all wish to flee
from the righteous wrath to come.

Wow how I hate food.
So much.
So so so so sooooo much.

I feel so tired...this semester feels like it has been longer than a month...more like several years.

Maybe I will graduate this spring...that way I will never have to step foot in this city or at this school again. That alone is something to look forward to.

I just am having trouble looking beyond the incredible amounts of pain I am in today, how I just don't know what to do...how to deal with being in so much pain...feeling so...disjointed and out of place.

How much...really matters that I try?
What in my life...is actually worth doing?
Anytime I can sit here and not be in pain feels like borrowed time I am rapidly running out of.

Oh well...people are people.
Can't really expect them to do anything except serve their best interests at the end of the day.
Sometimes they will surprise you by moving beyond their inner drive for self preservation...but it is certainly not something ever worth holding your breath over.

All of creation is slowly unwinding...as the world falls apart from the inside out.
This sort of...radiant decay as it were.
There is some good to be seen in it, much good when you dig deep.
Just...a good potion of hope seems to be based on willing blindness and building upon the misery of others...which is tragic in and of itself.

Progress that destroys, breaks and corrupts is never progress.
Just lightly veiled sin.

-Galatians 3:13-14

"But Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When he was hung on the cross, he took upon himself the curse for our wrongdoing. For it is written in the Scriptures, “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.” Through Christ Jesus, God has blessed the Gentiles with the same blessing he promised to Abraham, so that we who are believers might receive the promised Holy Spirit through faith."
-Galatians 3:13-14


I."But Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law."
-The law was the guide to the Israelite, the Jewish nation, that they were given after the Exodus from Egypt and camped at the base of Mt.Sinai. God gave Moses the law of what was expected of the people if they wanted to join God in a covenant, a marriage of the people to God that was a fulfillment he had made to their ancestors.
-Humanity has been divided from God, from grace by choosing to ignore God and in fact act against him and one another. God told Adam in the garden that to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil would mean that he would die. The consequence of sin is death, one cannot have sin and be with God because we would be destroyed.
-The law in a sense acted to show what we could not do on our own, even though there was a sacrifice system so that the Jews could have forgiveness for themselves, their families and as a nation the blood of the animals was only a temporary fix, it did not solve the ultimate problem of humanity being separated from God.
-However Jesus Christ acting as both high priest and the final sacrificial lamb opened a way for people to be fully reconciled and not have to face the ultimate punishment for their sin.


II."When he was hung on the cross, he took upon himself the curse for our wrongdoing."
-Acting as the ultimate sacrifice for our sins he took upon the punishment we deserved for acting against God and each other.
-He was the lamb slain so that the division between God and man could finally be filled.



III."For it is written in the Scriptures, “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.”"
-This quote is from Deuteronomy 21:23
-Jesus became cursed for us so that we would not have to endure the full consequences of our actions.


IV."Through Christ Jesus, God has blessed the Gentiles with the same blessing he promised to Abraham, so that we who are believers might receive the promised Holy Spirit through faith."
-

"And everyone cries out Your name, as the world is raped by selfishness
And no one knows the way to heaven, we only know the emptiness
And the storm it rages in my heart, and the endless empty roars in my ears
My world is coming all apart, I’ve no strength left to dry my tears
And through it all I hear Your voice, breaking my heart, breaking my will
Calms the storm inside my soul as You whisper "peace, be still..."

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

Sometimes it seems that the only person I am successful at lying to is myself and I really am starting to doubt how good I am at that.

Quote of the Day:

“You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid.”
-Franz Kafka

I am beginning to think that no major writing theologian of the past several hundred years are familiar with the concept of Occam's Razor.

Quote of the Day:

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."
-Oscar Wilde

I can say goodnight and take care...because I honestly do not know how this story ends.

Maybe it is just beginning...

There is so much pain, such a struggle...but even laying in this muddy ditch of self hate and medicated misery I can see the stars.

They are so beautiful.

Night into Dawn

I want to run from you.
Flee as far as I might.
From the east is as to the west.
My fear of being loved is too much.

I am.
That is the best I can manage.
You know me, my soul.
I am so...
I just am.
I can't think of anymore to say.

I complain, I cry, I rant...
But here I am.
Good and bad, ugly and beautiful
everything that I am.

Thank you for loving me.
I can only love because you first loved me.

I may be feeling like thawed out death...but it is nice to write some...and feel a little bit better.

Every bit helps.

Psalm 146

"Praise the Lord!

Let all that I am praise the Lord.
I will praise the Lord as long as I live.
I will sing praises to my God with my dying breath.

Don’t put your confidence in powerful people;
there is no help for you there.
When they breathe their last, they return to the earth,
and all their plans die with them.
But joyful are those who have the God of Israel[a] as their helper,
whose hope is in the Lord their God."
-Psalm 146:1-5


I love you, I love you Daddy...you are so wonderful, beautiful and giving to one as shallow and immature as I am...and I can be.

No one knows me.
No human here will ever know me...would want to know every dark and disgusting about me...but you know and you never stopped pursuing me.
If anything, the harder I fought against you and tried to run...the greater the grace and beauty you wrapped me in.

I have seen and felt so much disappointment and pain...these temporal trinkets of wanting material things, of wanting marriage and a family...it is all fleeting and everything I am will perish and be wiped from this world so soon...I just want to be caught up in loving you when I die.

As often as I complain, as cynical as my heart can be...can I just sit here in this exhausted and sickly stupor, can I sit here and have you hold me close?
Hold my head to your chest so I can hear your heartbeat and love for a wicked son such as me. I want to feel you, I need to be near you...not just words, not just pious religion...but you Abba, Daddy...my love and beginning and end.


Every time I stumble into a relationship...I've caused so much pain. I never realize how destructive I am to others and myself...how me loosing sight of you and trying to find happiness and meaning in relationships...just causes me to become so dependent that I loose the ability to function when I loose someone, anyone...not to mention the hypocrisy that I vomit in my words.

How can you love so a wretched and unworthy sinner as myself?

Thank you, thank you...oh daddy, thank you so much.
Just let me find peace enough for the night as it turns into day...keep me close and show me the love I will never be able to understand.

Help me...give me strength to endure this indefinite period of singularity and the honest reality it won't end until I take my final step from this life and have you to wipe away my tears and comfort my broken body and soul...give me enough grace for today...let me find myself in you so I can just make this next step as best as I can.

Psalm 145

"The Lord is righteous in everything he does;
he is filled with kindness.
The Lord is close to all who call on him,
yes, to all who call on him in truth.
He grants the desires of those who fear him;
he hears their cries for help and rescues them.
The Lord protects all those who love him,
but he destroys the wicked."
-Psalm 145:17-20

Righteous?
Justice?
Judgment?
Grace?
Fear?
Religion?
Salvation?

None of these terms mean anything to me right now...I don't need a cosmic deity that holds all of creation in the palm of his hand. I need a Father, a Love who will not abandon and leave me here. That will never grow tired of me or decide I wasn't the best thing available...but sees me for all of my disgusting imperfections and still loves my broken and sinfully needy self.

I cannot do it.
I have tried and I can't.

I hurt too much.
I am human and so needy, so broken...so imperfect and wanting you close again.

I need the Man of Sorrows mentioned in Isaiah 53...the Lover from the Psalms and Song...the man Jesus in the Gospels who carried my sin and bore the wrath of God for me...I need to feel the rough arms of a loving Daddy who has lived through this Hell called life and will hold me until I am okay.

I just...miss the closeness...the intimacy of your spirit burning in my heart, the peace beyond understanding that no matter the Hell you were with me always.

So tired, so worn down from the pain...I just want to lay here in this darkness...just lay in this grace and float to whatever distant lands you are calling me to...

Thank you, thank you for caring...for loving me...thank you.

...I cannot help but pause and look at the utter ridiculousness of all of this.

All of it.

Really?
Yes, really.

So asinine.

Quote of the Day:

"Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free-wills involve, and you find that you have excluded life itself."
-C.S. Lewis

God, the Cosmic Dentist

Which is worse to deliver to someone, bad news or no news at all?

I hate giving people bad news but I find having no real news to be so much more frustrating after building up hope that I was finally on the way out of this sickness.

The invasive test today was painful, annoying, embarrassing, awkward and even though biopsies were taken there is very little chance of them showing anything new.

Until the doctor gets the results from the biopsy and has a chance to review the CT film there really is not much else that can be done. Tentatively he is calling this a postinfectious case of IBS(from either the Dysentery from China in 2005 or the Diverticulitis that payed me a recent visit) which is being amplified by my low pain tolerance and my old and dear friend fibromyalgia.

Despite my rather cheeky response of how things can't be worse and "At least I am not currently engulfed in flames" I really am too tired to try and make a clever joke to try and defuse the situation. I am frustrated and tired from being in pain. I am so sick of having to take large amounts of medication to just scrape out the most basics of function.

How long will these symptoms persist?
How much worse can this really get?
A lot of people I talk to who have fibromyalgia have to file for disability by their 30's because of being unable to cope with the pain and their loss of functionality. I can't think of anything for me that would be more horrible than that...the fact I can barely make it to my classes upsets me but the thought of not being able to do anything is what I would consider my own personal Hell.

I am not really even sure why I am bothering to write all this out and post it online...I hate to complain I would rather just suffer in silence and grin and bear it rather than risk inconveniencing someone.

However, the one rule I made for myself when I started my blog "Recollections Gone Wild" is that I would never censor myself from the truth. I would never name names but be honest about my struggles, failures, joys, successes and just how generally insane life is and how awkwardly beautiful God is.

And life feels insane right now.
I feel much too tired to do anything and the last thing I want to do on Monday is drive back to Mobile to desperately try and catch up in class...but what other options do I have?

Lay in bed and suffer?
Give up on living life?
Just stop caring about dreams?
Check out before the day drags on anymore?

One thing I have tried to always do is be honest about my relationship to God. It is so important to me that I try to never disguise or hide doubts and struggles...what is the point? Jesus created me so he already knows what I think and putting on a fake pious attitude helps no one, much less me.

I have never been one to just sit and wait for a burning bush to roll into my room and toss me a clipboard with a list and map of what to do with my life...but honestly at this point I am not thinking that far ahead or even wanting to.

The fact I have a glass of tea, my cat beside me and music to help stir my soul is the most relief I am going to have for now...maybe for awhile.
I'm not giving up on life as much as I am just so worn down and need to rest...maybe things will look bigger, brighter or shiny in the morning.

I don't know.
I honestly do not know.
God scares me to no end because there is no promise or guarantee things will get easier. Contrary to the rabid Pollyanna thought of well meaning Christians, the only thing Jesus promises is that he will be with us and that we will suffer. In fact it seems those God wants to us more he lets go deeper into the grind and suffer.

This quote from C.S. Lewis kind of sums up my thoughts right now:


"The terrible thing is that a perfectly good God is in this matter hardly less formidable than a Cosmic Sadist. The more we believe that God hurts only to heal, the less we can believe that there is any use in begging for tenderness. A cruel man might be bribed - might grow tired of his vile sport - might have a temporary fit of mercy, as alcoholics have fits of sobriety.

But supposed that what you are up against is a surgeon whose intentions are wholly good. The kinder and more conscientious he is, the more inexorably he will go on cutting. If he yielded to your entreaties, if he stopped before the operation was complete, all the pain to that point would have been useless. But is it credible that such extremities of torture should be necessary for us? Well, take you choice. The tortures occur. If they are unnecessary, then there is no God or a bad one. If there is a good God, then these tortures are necessary. For no moderately good Being could possibly inflict or permit them if they weren't.

Either way, we're for it.

What do people mean when they say, "I am not afraid of God because I know He is good?" Have they never even been to a dentist?""
-C.S. Lewis

(Even More) Medical Mystery Fun

For those keeping tabs on how things are going for me health wise I have another appointment at UAB at noon tomorrow to have some rather invasive testing done to determine the state of the infection in my GI track and the proper course of action for treating it. I can't say I am exactly thrilled about more poking and prodding but it seems like for the first time in YEARS I have a real shot at having things change for the better.

It's been a bit of a rough and tumble week with being sick, trying to keep up with homework while being three hours from school...and for once in my life I am actually missing the convenience of the cafeteria's food. I have also missed classes, walking across the campus, tea with amazing friends and the sort of general insanity I have come to expect from being at UM.

Life is sort of funny in the sense that things rarely turn out the way we think they would or even could...and yet there is so much beauty in the unexpected turns. I don't think many of us would have chosen the path we are on if we knew how much the pain would be...yet no matter how dark it gets or how vivid the pain there is still so much potential, so much hope...so much goodness left in the world.

There is every reason in the world to give into despair and quit but I have refused to...just looking beyond the superfical pain that runs throughout this world and below it there is so much good. I have seen that goodness in all of your prayers, mugs of tea, messages, hugs, book, stories, in class, laughing and just being there to listen and care have helped me in so many ways.

Thank you again and again.
Thank you.


"No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.

And God has given us his Spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us. Furthermore, we have seen with our own eyes and now testify that the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. All who confess that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God. We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love.

God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world.

Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love. We love each other because he loved us first."
-1 John 4:12-19

So much pain...to look for a cure...bit of irony there too...

Breathing, moving, seeing, hearing, feeling...all of these sensations are such overloads...and pain.

Good God, why, why, why?

What is there to gain from this battle?
I just want to lay down...and never ache again, never...

Quote of the Day:

“Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens.”
-J.R.R. Tolkien

*Cue mad laughter*

Curiouser and curiouser...serrated teeth and words dripping with venom...

Hrmm...

Because time is still flowing in a linear fashion...hrmm...

Hmm...it seems my sense of humor is getting increasingly darker...

Normally I would have found that upsetting.
Instead...it is absolutely hilarious.

I think...it might be a tad unhealthy...however if I can treat things like that as being so inconsequential that I can laugh...I might just make it a bit longer.

And be able to help someone in the process.

Well something happened at least.
More awkward procedures to come.
Bah...so tired and achey.
Oh wells.

Could be worse.
Much, much, much worse.
Thankfully it is not.

Here goes the hope that this will not be a visit in vain...a waste of gas...hope, hope, hope.

"And this is not my face
And this is not my life
And there is not a single thing here
I can recognize
This is all a dream
And none of you are real
I'll give anything
I'll give anything

Hey you
What you running from?
All your hate
What you've become
Bet you didn't think
It would happen to you
All used up
Half way through

And this is not my face
And this is not my life
And there is not a single thing here
I can recognize
This is all a dream
And none of you are real
I'll give anything
I'll give anything"

Medical Mystery Fun

For those who keep up with me and my life I tend to be sick.
Quite a lot.

Last month I had some out of the blue stomach issues that turned out to be a rather nasty infection in my GI track by the name of Diverticulitis. Because of the nature of this infection it is very possible that this on again/off again disease could have been what has plagued me sense my disastrous mission trip to China back in 2006.

I have an appointment at the Kirkland Clinic at UAB in the morning at 8:40 and hopefully, hopefully this will lead to some actual progress and a real permanent solution to where I am not sick about three fourths of the time.

Thank you all for your prayers, concern, encouragement, words of wisdom, random jokes, posts...and all the general zaniness I have come to except from this group of crazy and amazing people that make up my family and friends.

I'll do my best to update everyone when I find out what is going on.
Thank you again.

Quote of the Day:

"Hermits United. We meet up every ten years. Swap stories about caves. It's good fun... for a hermit."
-The Doctor

The thing is...even with how excruciating the pain is...how I am being swept up into a sea of nausea...and pain, such pain...I know this isn't the end.

I have to keep going.
I am supposed to meet someone...there appears to be more.
This is just a layover...because I have to do more to help.

I have only scratched the surface.
I have so much more to learn...so many more people to meet...maybe I can help, do something good or nice for once...

I have to try.
I don't know if there will be anyone to do it...if I don't try.

I think my brain just exploded from the sheer awesomeness of Dr.Who.

I believe the term "meh" comes to mind...such silliness...

I...

Words aren't really even worth the effort at this point.

Several levels of severe and eye piercing irony I suppose.

I swear if I hear someone use the term "epic" or "legendary" or...or...anything of that nature...again...I think I am going to snap and start throwing books at them.

World of Warcraft, I have you to blame for the cultural saturation of those terms.

Curse you and your lack of roleplaying servers that are actually roleplaying.

That...is strange to see...and know...and...

Yeah.

Not sure why I bothered with that trail of thoughts...

Quote of the Day:

"Let's think the unthinkable, let's do the undoable, let's prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all."
-Douglas Adams

Have I ever mentioned how much I hate being nauseated?

I have?

Was just checking.

Maybe things with my health will finally be under control after next week...it's either going to be a super increase of medication and more antibiotics...or they will just chop off the parts of me that are infected on the inside.

Not sure which one I want more...I just know I would like normality, to be able to talk without loosing my breath from pain...to sleep more than an hour or so at a time...maybe even just be able to break out and run full speed again.

I mean...things could no doubt be much worse...I am lucky that I only have to deal with physical pain and nausea...God knows if this was a type of cancer or flesh eating disease what I would be dealing with.

Instead it is a pain disorder mixed with an infection.


Still...can't help but be concerned...I really want to finish this semester and be healthier...maybe there will be a means and a way to do both...maybe...hopefully, hopefully.

So much ickness...I really, really, really hope I will be getting off of medications one way or another...I am already afraid I'm going to have severe issues with sleep again once this is all said and done.

At least I'm not addicted to anything or am in a position where I "have" to have pain medication...sure it would be nice to be able to skip around without excruciating pain...but where would the fun be in that?

I do believe the appropriate Princess Bride quote is "Life is pain princess! Anyone who says different is selling you something."

I figure I drag Jesus' name through the mud enough that there isn't much a need to actually try and overly associate him with this blog and my mad ravings...but it's like...with this pain...I think it is a chance to surrender and just make one step at a time...because I really have no other choice.

But really...I haven't been crawling as much as being dragged and eventually carried because of everything...everything...

Sleep?
What is that thing...

Quote of the Day:

"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect... but actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly... timey-wimey... stuff."
-The Doctor

Sometimes I feel stupid.
Quite stupid actually.

Hmm...strange, strange, strange...

Psalm 135

"Your name, O Lord, endures forever;
your fame, O Lord, is known to every generation.
For the Lord will give justice to his people
and have compassion on his servants."
-Psalm 135:13-14


Justice, such an interesting choice of words.
Justice...grace, this bizarre mix...we don't get what we deserve and never could deserve what we are given.

I'm afraid of...decisions, choices...the past...the future...

I just...need this love and compassion...because I am so tired.
So sick.
So worn down.

Can I just lay here...lay as your grace falls upon my soul?
Rain this love down on me...overfill my heart so that love pours through the breaks and cracks...overwhelming my situation...

There is something moderately disturbing about how listening to Nine Inch Nails while studying the Bible flows together so easily.

>_>

Quote of the Day:

"Writing fiction, especially a long work of fiction, can be a difficult, lonely job; it's like crossing the Atlantic Ocean in a bathtub. There's plenty of opportunity for self doubt."
-Stephen King

Droplets of Grace

Blissful anticipation.
Hope beyond hope.
Love beyond love.

Transcendence.

Stretched through time
and finding reality
in this space.

So many miles,
so many days.

Do you recall what it was like
to feel the sand
and water
just passing under your toes?

Feeling hunger,
tasting the smells in the air
and longings
of heat and comfort.

How strong is the irony
of the only human
to ever live life fully
was creator
and a paradox
of being two things at once?

Lamb and Lion,
strong and careful,
divine and man.

How could this ever be?
It is too much to hope
to dare to dream
but oh how I have dreamed such dreams!

Carry me,
for I'm too weak to walk
or crawl.
Jesus Christ,
great is my need
and how shallow my faith.
Grant me grace to continue this run
please,
just please
help me be faithful
and hold the course till the end.

The sun with rise and fall
and time will fade into the aether
as mountains slide into the sea
and love wipes away every tear.

Painful, beautiful pain
coating this anticipation
and need of grace.

One day we shall walk
and be beside each other again,
where the sun never dies
and the sea stretches
out like perfect glass
and all of this,
pain
hate
fear
sin
and cancer of the soul
will cease to be.
We can hold hands
and walk there
and be together.
Forevermore.

T-T-T-T-T-N-N-M

Types,
just that redundant cliche
speaking volumes
in such silly sentiments.
nothing but headaches
while I listen
passive and tired.

Typography,
is not something I ever considered
nor did I realize
how much of it is this disease
festering and growing
in the soul.

Typically,
I am finding myself with no words
and just generic moans and sighs.
Listen to the reverb
just talk from cowards
not living life
as much as just playing around.

Tyranny,
life isn't just your little gem
or your claim to fame
and the beautiful irony
is that I am just the same.
Every morning we look in the mirror
and just see each other
never knowing we were soul mates.

Twins,
cursed of methodology
and genes bringing us together
for every battle
and every fight
that ends with so much blood
spreading across this room.



Nothing, nothing
or is it just
nothing something?
Take time to decorate your room
eternity is a long time
to be cut off from life
just to say you won.

Maybe,
just maybe
we'll find a place in the middle
and enough time we can call ample,
just maybe
it'll all make sense.

Hrmm...confusion.

"Types" has to be one of the single most useless and asinine things humanity invented.

That and Spam.

One nightmare deserves another?

I am getting frustrated with my vision going in and out of focus.
How am I supposed to do homework when the freaking words keep blurring into huge messes of inkblots?

Bah I hate medication side effects.
But...grace is still so sweet, so wonderful and beautiful...especially so in the pain.

"So now I'm stuck here
Between the guilty and the insincere
The words I spoke have left me here all alone
I should have known this
I never saw the backlash when the tide began to rise
I wish it all gone
I could've burned it when I had the choice
And now I'd die to kill the noise in my head

So I remember on the inside

I found a dark, infernal place I don't want to face anymore
Somehow, I won't stop feeding the pain
My heart's just the same as before

So I remember on the inside

If this is all the love my spirit can give
Just take it back tonight
There is not a reason more to live"

To a degree life would be so much easier if I could either switch off completely or turn on apathy as a state of being...it would be easier but so much more dull, trite and pointless.

I really would like to think I am doing the best I can to be friends and show love to everyone...everyone...which is one thing I decided this past week about putting forth effort to just be there...and try to mend broken ties.

Sometimes I am very unsure of people and their motivations...and words, words are so confusing even with given context. However I do pray...and hope for the best.

There is no simple solution...no magic to be found...except the magic that comes from sacrifice and caring more about others...

Ah...well ultimately I really don't know much...and just showing up and trying to be faithful is all I can do. What else is there?

...and there goes my ability to sleep for a bit.

Always more pain but not always enough pills...

Hrmm...today is not the day I wish to deal with inflated and self-righteous egos over art, literature or theater...I simply wish to let go and create...see what flows...

Caring exerts a lot of energy...apathy does too...

There has to be a middle ground between fatalism and trying to carry the whole world.

Hmm...

Migraines are incredibly uncool.
Ack.
>_<

Could be better...could be worse.

Undignified Love Letter

Falling,
flittering thoughts
just glisten
as they bathe in astral lights.

Hope has been waiting
with breath held
as the light approaches
overflowing
and fulfilling
long made promises
of yesteryear.

Years pass as seconds
in this inverted look at life,
just what will be left
after the grains fall
and pass trough the glass?

So many words
so many thoughts
but chief
is that I am my beloveds
and He is mine.
Spirit and water
intermingle
as I feel the eternal heartbeat
and the warmth against me.

Ash and sackcloth
with prayers and tears as my food,
what else may I do but wait?

Hope, desire, need
of this eternal love.

Everything is passing,
the mountains falling into the sea
and the sky will be rolled up like a scroll,
such fear and impossible means
but my Lover is steadfast.

Steadfast peace and joy
in this heart which has been cut and hurt
but the wounds
make it easier for Divine Love and Grace
to flow from here unto there.

Somehow my entire being lays out to you
and there are no secrets,
you know my heart
the pain
the sin
the failure
the lusts
the hate
the prejudice
the fears
and all the pride
which demands I have my own way.

Yet you do not hesitate
to hold me when I hurt
and catch me when I fall.
Eternal love
with such a divine Love,
how could I ever be grateful
about such impossible grace?

"There is no pain you are receding
A distant ship, smoke on the horizon.
You are only coming through in waves.
Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying.
When I was a child
I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye.
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown,
The dream is gone.
I have become comfortably numb."

Third day of having to get a cold shower and potential drama...that could ruin my day...however...I am making myself breath.

Slow deep breaths.

I have far too many more important things then to worry about this.
I'm worth much more than silly worrying and fretting about...



"Cause I'm already gone
Felt that way all along
Closer to you every day
I didn't want it that much anyway

You're taking steps that make you feel dizzy
Then you learn to like the way it feels
You hurt yourself, you hurt your lover
Then you discover what you thought was freedom is just greed

Goodbye, and it's emotional goodnight
I'll be up with the sun
Are you still holding on
I'm not coming down
I'm not coming down"

After the chaos of this summer...I think I have almost finished making amends with everyone screwed over by my actions and behavior...not that I did anything Hell bent on destroying lives...just a lot of really naive and stupidly immature and overly trusting actions wrapped in a silliness that created several awkward scenarios...luckily nothing was damaged beyond repair.

I have some amazing friends to love and drag me along...and stay beside me in these rough times...even when I caused hurt to them. I really could never thank God properly enough or pray enough for them.

Now if things with my health would improve...that would be pure magic.

Ah just one of those moments that makes your soul feel incredibly cheap...

"People with the emotional maturity of an apple."

Oh dear...how I have known people like that...not the best to keep company with.
Still just...that came out of much distress...but I find the analogy very well put...and funny.

One breath, just one breath at a time...

I really, really, really miss my grandmother.
A lot.
I went to check my mail in Samford and for some reason the empty box reminded me that...I wouldn't be getting any cards from her. It's been six or seven years since I have gotten one from her...but just...the void is still there.

It is nowhere as raw as the feelings were when her health started to decline...but at the same time...it's one of those things that I don't think can really ever heal. I think Anne Lamott put it best when she mentioned that loosing someone you love...it's like having a badly broken leg...it'll heal and you can dance but you will always still have a small limp and hurt some when you move the wrong way.

I sometimes hate the fact I am forced to need people...and resent God for putting me in life where I am going to hurt like Hell and there is nothing I can do about it. There is just want to be self righteous about it...but it's a loosing battle...just breathing, being able to move at all and breath is a blessing.

It is amazing how the things we talked about in Acting I today applied to my life...how pain and the past have marked my life so heavily...and how impossible I have found it to just be able to move at times...to think, to breath...to do anything except feel the pain in such a frighteningly vivid manner.

But...even in the cold snow that falls from this pain...the frigid casing that wraps around my heart and tries to keep me from breathing...even in the dark...I feel hope, I feel the warmth of the Lamb as he calls my name and relentlessly pursues me...with such a reckless love.

Psalm 127

"Unless the Lord builds a house,
the work of the builders is wasted.
Unless the Lord protects a city,
guarding it with sentries will do no good.
It is useless for you to work so hard
from early morning until late at night,
anxiously working for food to eat;
for God gives rest to his loved ones."
-Psalm 127:1-2

"I've conquered my past
The future is here at last
I stand at the entrance
To a new world I can see
The ruins to the right of me
Will soon have lost sight of me
Love rescue me"

I'm hurting.
Fairly freaking bad.
There was not hot water so I had a cold shower.
I feel nauseated.

But I have joy.
I hurt like I was thrown down a flight of stairs but God has me standing up.
I'm drinking blueberry pomegranate tea with a smile.

The future is here at last and I'm greeting her with a smile and a limp, but a smile all the same.

"


"One"

Is it getting better
Or do you feel the same
Will it make it easier on you
Now you got someone to blame
You say one love, one life
When it's one need in the night
It's one love
We get to share it
It leaves you baby
If you don't care for it

Did I disappoint you
Or leave a bad taste in your mouth
You act like you never had love
And you want me to go without
Well it's too late tonight
To drag the past out into the light
We're one but we're not the same
We get to carry each other, carry each other
One

Have you come here for forgiveness
Have you come to raise the dead
Have you come here to play Jesus
To the lepers in your head
Did I ask too much
More than a lot
You gave me nothing
Now it's all I got
We're one but we're not the same
We hurt each other, then we do it again

You say love is a temple
Love a higher law
Love is a temple
Love the higher law
You ask me to enter but then you make me crawl
And I can't be holding on to what you got
When all you got is hurt
One love, one blood, one life
You got to do what you should
One life with each other
Sisters, brothers
One life but we're not the same
We get to carry each other, carry each other
One"

Hrmmm

Nightmares...again...bah.

So strange, so weird...so true and so strange.
All at once.
Reality is so much more real than I could ever give it credit for.

"That's me in the corner
That's me in the spotlight
Losing my religion
Trying to keep up with you
And I don't know if I can do it
Oh no I've said too much
I haven't said enough
I thought that I heard you laughing
I thought that I heard you sing
I think I thought I saw you try"

>_< ZOMG pain!!!

Moogle.

That is all.

Mostly.

I wish I could give you the positive change you want to see so bad...but the best I can do right now is just take a step...left, right, left right...hoping I am heading in the right way.

Things are always changing...there is beauty to behold...and we're all heading in some direction, there is confusion...I'm so tired.

Maybe I am getting better...at least that would explain why I am sleeping so much lately...just the pain is still worrisome.

Maybe the doctors can fix my body...maybe even bits of my mind too...it's just between the Great Physician and myself to do some needed work on spirit improvement...walking forward and not holding back...being terrified of change and of the past.

Things are so vivid...so ever changing.
I want, need, hope...so desperately...
Everything human...

Words fail me.
As of late they often have...

Peace tomorrow, maybe the sun will rise on churches and inspire new hope.
The energy drain of the humidity and heat may be going...coolness is a welcome change.

Fall is my season, the season of change, where things become brown and colored and colder and darker.

October, November, December...such hope for you all this year...

Hope.
Hope?
Hope.

"How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls
Swimming in a fish bowl,
Year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have we found?
The same old fears.
Wish you were here. "

Quote of the Day:

"God is not proud...He will have us even though we have shown that we prefer everything else to Him."
-C.S. Lewis

Psalm 124

"What if the Lord had not been on our side?
Let all Israel repeat:
What if the Lord had not been on our side
when people attacked us?
They would have swallowed us alive
in their burning anger.
The waters would have engulfed us;
a torrent would have overwhelmed us.
Yes, the raging waters of their fury
would have overwhelmed our very lives.

Praise the Lord,
who did not let their teeth tear us apart!
We escaped like a bird from a hunter’s trap.
The trap is broken, and we are free!
Our help is from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth."
-Psalm 124:1-8


It is nice to breath.
To have a cup of tea.
I am alive.
Here for the moment and soon to be gone.
Beauty that lasts from moment to moment,
hope that will live on beyond the fragile.

This personality, this soul
the need to feel and breath
leap and bound
from moment to moment
will stretch from now until forever
eternally laid out before Love
in such unknowable
vivid tones and colors.

Here now,
gone and soon.
But beauty while it lasts
as it evolves
and becomes more than it would have been
in any other form or sense.


Thank you for loving me in spite of my insanity and faulty ways...of carrying me when I'm too tired to do anything except be in pain...thank you for loving me as me...loving me enough to never leave me just as I am...but wanting me to improve, to grow and transform into who I can be.

So much I know so little I do know
but I do know love
feel it so vividly
even when I hurt
and in the ache
and longing for you.

Eternal longings,
just to blend from now
into you
soul and soul entwined
and forever together
never to be gone again.

Hope beyond hope.
Such beauty
such need.

Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.

Sometimes...I just...

Hopeful confusion?
Is that a legitimate state of mind?

...you know it is going to be a long day when the books you are reading have an introduction to the introduction in order to explain the reason why/for/how of the existence of an introduction to begin with in the first place.

Oie zay.

My soul feels a tad dingy...a bit dirty and needs to be cleaned off.
It's been sitting outside in the dirt for a little too long and needs to be shaken off before being allowed to come inside and play.

I guess part of the problem is my ability to see most black and white issues in various shades of gray and to know that no one is really the villain...as much as we all are just broken and confused people wandering around this triage unit called life.

That isn't to shirk responsibilities as much as it is just to say we are all equally dependent on some measure of grace to be able to breath and reach some sort of place where we can stop and have some juice to drink.

I guess that might be an appropriate metaphor for life.
We all are really just broken and wounded people walking around a sick bay with an opportunity to help those with the same injuries and pain we have experienced and dealt with...hmm...sometimes life is too real and too vivid for life.

That...

Yeah.

That will be a problem.

I kind of...feel nauseous and want to throw up now...bah...

Tea, tea, tea...

I have issues with facades...somethings seeming too good to be true...I'm not sure...may just be paranoia...and yet...I detect hints of...

Hrmm...

No need to judge on my part, just pray.
What more can you do to help someone who doesn't want help?
Or may not even need it.

That is the funny thing about being human...you never get the full picture of anything.

"Many strangers have I met
On the road to my regret
Many lost who seek to find themselves in me
They ask me to reveal
The very thoughts they would conceal
Love rescue me

And the sun in the sky makes a shadow of you and I
Stretching out as the sun sinks in the sea
I'm here without a name in the palace of my shame
Love rescue me

In the cold mirror of a glass
I see my reflection pass
I see the dark shades of what I used to be
I see the purple of her eyes
The scarlet of my lies
Love rescue me

And the sun in the sky makes a shadow of you and I
Stretching out as the sun sinks in the sea
I'm hanging on by my thumbs
I'm ready for whatever comes
Love rescue me

Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow
Yet I will fear no evil
I have cursed they rod and staff
They no longer comfort me
Love rescue me

I've conquered my past
The future is here at last
I stand at the entrance
To a new world I can see
The ruins to the right of me
Will soon have lost sight of me
Love rescue me"

Psalm 123

"I lift my eyes to you,
O God, enthroned in heaven.
We keep looking to the Lord our God for his mercy,
just as servants keep their eyes on their master,
as a slave girl watches her mistress for the slightest signal.
Have mercy on us, Lord, have mercy,
for we have had our fill of contempt.
We have had more than our fill of the scoffing of the proud
and the contempt of the arrogant."
-Psalm 123:1-4

Mercy...such beauty, such wonder after a lifetime of trying to find perfection that can never be. I am so sick of trying to find something that isn't there...trying to beat myself to find a life that isn't there...and the bitterness and anger that comes from being disappointed with everything and nothing.

Can I let go?
I can I just let everything go?
Fall, fall into your arms and forget every pain and sin I have ever felt?

It is a new day, a new life, a new everything...and I just want to go back to sleep. Can that be my worship for now? Just enjoying another hour or two of sleep because I feel like crap?

I love you Daddy, I love you so much.
You are amazing and so beautiful to me.
I never know what will happens but even when horrible, horrible stuff happens you love me...and I can never thank you enough, worship or praise you enough.
Thank you.

Thank you for loving me as I am, not what I should be.

Random Explosion of Thoughts and Exuberant Gratefulness

Life can never be as simple as a story or song...sadly in ways...
However there is something infinitely more wonderful about how messy, screwed up and disgusting as humans finding redemption and being able to make even the simplest things work.

Friendship.
Playing games.
Talking about books over coffee.

I never have stopped to appreciate just how amazing it is to be able to work on homework together and laugh over small things.

Yes I am excessively negative because I look at the wrong things a lot of the time...I see the imperfections and what things COULD be...which is maddening...and will never lead to happiness...however friendships where people are allowed to not have everything together...that is something I would like to see.

In fact...the Society of Scapegoats should have something like that in it's manifesto. Perfection is not allowed in our meetings, activities or friendships...perfect people are banned and will be set on fire if they persist in coming.

There is nothing perfect in human existence...and the fact God not only desires us, but thinks of us, longs for us to be near in spite of that shows what an utter madman he is. He doesn't desire even the wicked to perish...even the worst of us...and how Jesus had true humanity...it is amazing, beyond amazing...just this visceral love...this painful love that makes my heart ache...and desire to just hug Jesus and cry out every last ounce of anguish joy inside of me.

I think I love U2's music so much because the songs capture emotion or a moment so well...this element of worship that transcends and makes my Christian mystic/hermit tendencies all happy, warm and fuzzy inside...

I don't even know what I am rambling about...except I am happy to be alive this very moment. I could have died any infinite number of times...and I love my mother, my friends, my dear sweet friends so very much...they are this collection of rag tag individuals all misfits from the church but all amazing in their own ways.

Who says we must be perfect?
Who demands it?
Humans demand it when God knows we can't do it?
How silly and futile.

Jesus thank you being so utterly wacky and insane to have made me and love me as I am. Do you know and realize how utterly screwed up that is? How insane and crazy I am? Do you?

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Note to self: Stop trying to understand stuff while having a migraine.

Thank you.

Good things, bad things, good things, bad things...life is a mixture and is never just one thing.

Confusion, growing migraine starting...hope.
Not hope in the immediate sense of things per say...although things are better...but hope that even though life never has resolutions...everything will resolve sooner rather than later...maybe not in this breath but possibly in the next.

Quote of the Day:

"I have a lot of faith. But I am also afraid a lot, and have no real certainty about anything...the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns."
— Anne Lamott

"If anyone says ever being a Christian is easy, they are smoking crack."

BEST THING I have read all day.
Made me laugh until I hurt myself.
^_^

A good day...I just wish I wasn't in so much pain that I wanted to scream...

Oh how quickly doth our dreams become living nightmares...

So many thoughts...so little space for them...such curious things...manner of living, life...everything...

I feel as if I am setting myself up for more pain, more problems...but...

The door is here.
The decision must be made now.

Curiouser and curiouser...because...

What makes me happy?
Such a silly thought...

Daylight Fading into the Next

Today...was such a difficult but wonderful day.
Easily the best day I have had since summer break started and ended.

Just...I feel connected again...and even though I feel like death thawed out...I laughed, I smiled...I felt safe again...not judged. Even though I made such a mess out of things...and acted immature...it's beautiful to know that there is such thing as being able to try and move on...and learn.

Other things...I'm not so looking forward to...but I am just going to be me.
What else can I do?
I don't like everything about me...I don't like being sick or having depressed moments...but I refuse to pretend to be something I am not...at least that is what I gather from Jesus...it's okay to be crazy, we're all broken and sometimes it's okay to just hug and drink juice.


What else can I do? Who else can I be?
I still don't understand so much...
But my mom was amazing today and helped me so much.
I rarely mention good things and am grateful on here...but she helped me.
She has been such a strong supporter even though I tend to forget to be more grateful and thankful for that love...I am, even when I am so caught up in myself I forget about people.


I've never gotten over my grandmother passing away...and so it can be hard for me to be open with people...because even though we live in the moment...I see them going...leaving...dying...and it's hard. I don't want to endure such loss...but what other choice do I have?

I don't want to be strong...I don't want to be the one acting as a pillar.
I just want to lay in your arms Daddy...just rest knowing you are so much bigger than everything else...my love, my God, my savior, my Daddy...so much, so powerful...so beautiful and amazing...thank you. For family, for friends, for joy, for pain, for the awkward moments and the best...

I want this to be the best year it can be.
One step.
Just one step at a time...

I laugh.
What else may I do in the face of such madness at this?
All of this foreknown and foresaw.
I laugh, laugh and laugh.
Oh such bitter madness.