I wish I could inspire hope for those that truly need it...

Dear Jesus

Thank you for letting one of my friends be clear of cancer.

One down and one to go.

Can we try to make this a two for two please?

Thank you.

Regards;
-Matt.

Quote of the Day:

"To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem."
-Douglas Adams

I'm either being glue to help holds things together...or just a wedge to push things apart.

Why can't I simply just love?

Logical Reversals

Day and night,
night and day.
Hours, minuted and seconds
just bleeding into the next.

Perception fading in and out
set to the rhythm
of your broken
and bleeding hearts.

Lacking substantial rhyme or reason
for this display
of turbulence
I just loose myself
and pray,
just pray for the coming Light.

Pain,
blinding and all encompassing,
pain that rips my body asunder
and pulls my soul out of its apathy
as I collapse gasping for air.

Value judgment calls
about the worth of the person
who lacks your dogma,
and I can't help but feel pity
for the close minds
that cause so much pain.

I want to feel again,
I want my heart and soul to bleed
and feel the hope
as they feel in pain.
Every last passing second
as I wait and cry
I will stand and die
just to feel
Your heartbeat again.

I have nothing
but this heart to given,
broken and black
as I hope for something more.

"The world is full of ones like me, who need to see the truth
But the truth is never truth indeed, the truth is only You
The world will soon become extinct, the age will pass away
And all will know that you are God, hallowed be Your name"

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

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

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

And I know You're alive
I'll give my heart to survive
This world has nothing to offer a human soul
Reaching for the sky
So Father of light
Keep this human spirit alive"

The sheer amount of improbability is soaring and flying to new heights.

It seems understanding is merely a luxury these days...

Quote of the Day:

“God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say. Yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of sinners.”
-Soren Kierkegaard

Falling, Falling...

In so many words I just wish God would open the heavens and direct me to someplace like he did the prophets in the Old Testament and the Apostles in the New Testament.

It feels like every time I have 'felt' God tell me to go somewhere...things have blown up in my face in one way or another.

I'm still rather baffled about being in Chicago.
This has been...actually relaxing...I've enjoyed meeting new people (despite cultural, religious and philosophical differences being so extreme at times) and it wasn't uncomfortable.

The thing that makes me upset is that these beautiful people would not be accepted by most Christians and churches I know. Because of the lifestyles, beliefs and language they use...this would make the majority of the people I know that are 'good' Christians uncomfortable enough to ignore them.

For those keeping score at home, yes this is irony because I am making both assumption and judgment based upon previous experience...but honestly I can hear the conversations in my head.


It would take place at a circle table at church, people asking for prayer for such 'poor, ungodly people' for their unspeakable sins they commit. Why is prayer seemingly always turned into this chance for gossip?

Value judgments aside, where did this asinine assumption of superiority come from?

Growing up, why were we always told to not make friends with non Christians? That if we're around 'bad' people they would rub off on us?

Where is Jesus to be found in that load of crap?

There is nothing to be found in gathering together with the same tired cliches and useless expressions of holiness. I keep going on about how I want to break down barriers but the biggest hurdle is my own judgmental heart full of sin and pain.





Every time I think I know where my Nineveh is...things change and keep changing...action and reaction...things are it's own every growing mess of confusion. I think maybe it's because of my skewed perception that I think I am lost.

I'm starting to believe I am here...right here, in this chair, in this apartment in a suburb of Chicago for a real reason. What that reason is...I know not and any absolute certainty at this point is sheer silliness.

It's like the people so enamored with being in love that they only see what they want to see...they only see people as being a means to their end...it's a shame I've been treating Jesus like this.

I'm alive for a reason, part of that is to actually enjoy life...along the way it is possible to learn to share my heart and mind with those around me...I just desperately need to find Christians I can spend time with that will drop the charades and just be themselves...I can't take being around religious bigots much more...it's been dangerous being around those who have lived outside the church...it's helping me see my own hypocrisies much more clearly.

I just wish this thorn of pride could be ripped out...and I could start loving freely instead based on a value system.

So many thoughts...would you believe hope is mixed in?
Even in my bitter jaded self...hope is wrapped in and around my lungs and heart as I look to the heavens and feel the music pouring into my soul and out my lips.

Hope lives and will thrive, it will let me laugh and smile and embrace those I love...

This isn't the end of anything, just the beginning of eternity.

What would shut me up long enough for me to be 'happy'?

Hope still remains.

No matter what you do to try and murder it, your plans will never succeed. All your workings, every last part of your fragile attempts at destruction will fail.

Love will prevail through this night, born on wings of hope and the ability to smile even in the darkest of nights.

Preface

My center of balance is off and it feels like falling, it feels like failing and while you can watch for free, the only price is my raising pain.

I never intended to be on display but while we're on the subject I might as well continue this freak show the best way I know how, self deprecation and prayers that just maybe things will end soon enough.

I live in my own world.
The realm I constructed from me being and acting as such a parasite upon imagination.
Nothing feels real, just as you never did.
I wouldn't know truth any better than the lies I hold so dear.
Everything passes in various shades of gray, as I hope for something more.

Is everything damned into the place of fear?
I want to know truth.
I want to know what I can trust.
How long until Love is all that remains?

I'm tired of life, I would quit if I could.
Just let go and be free of being so tired and fake.
Why is it I make such stupid choices in life?
Why can't I just bite my tongue and let things die?

I do not want to resign myself, regulate myself in this box.
All I want is all I want and all I want is to breath.
I just want to live without fear.
Is it too much to ask for life and to laugh?
Is it too inconceivable that I tire of games and perpetual pain?

I want to run,
just run into the arms
of the love
of the Divine Lover
and the only One who knows
and will know this broken soul.
Trembling hands
and a broken soul
and a resigned sigh
of not knowing
this way
and path.

Really, this is me.
Are you so surprised?
I am.
Enough to break this mirror and walk away.

"And I give it all away
Just to have somewhere
To go to
Give it all away
To have someone
To come home to

This is my December
These are my snow-covered trees
This is me pretending
This is all I need"

Some Thoughts on Forgiveness:

"Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect."
-Romans 12:2

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law."
-Galatians 5:22-23

"He that cannot forgive others, breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass if
he would ever reach heaven; for everyone has need to be forgiven."
-George Herbert




I just read an interesting little tidbit on forgiveness by one of the writers at xxxchurch.com.

It is so...strange to think that forgiveness is more important for the offend rather than the offender. I am carrying a lot of pain in my soul, a lot of pain, a lot of bitterness that slowly eats at my soul...it consists of everything from the failings of family to the bitterness that comes from having Christians and churches fail me.

How much of it is deliberate?
Honestly, how many people intend to strike chords within my heart to where I loose my perspective on life and forget not just who I am but why I was born in the first place?

Over the past few days I have had a LOT of conversation about Christianity, church, the fake Jesus (who is Caucasian, blue eyes and blond hair) history, sexuality, children, vampires, paganism, 'alternate' lifestyles, cats, family, zombies and really only God knows what else.

In hindsight the two things that matter the most to me in this world were overlooked, that being the real Jesus and grace.

I honestly have never one who takes many opportunities to "put in a good word for God" but I really do not think misplaced evangelism would be the right thing to do when it comes to the ones wearied by experience. Talking to people who have been seriously burned by the church, Christians and the whole religious establishment...is so disheartening and like having a mirror held up in front of me.

I've given several blanket apologies for the utter lunacy that the Christian church has been for the past couple of thousand of years. I'm a little old fashion in that I believe in a literal Satan because that is the only one I can think of that could twist something as beautiful as God coming in human form to show love to His people and that sacrifice and grace...and make it about religion and politics.

How many millions of people have been murdered in the name of Jesus, of whom Paul preached? How many tens of millions have been mindlessly abused, persecuted and lost their place in the world because of self righteous idiots who took a small nugget of truth and took it to the logical extreme?

I know so little about life, there are few things I have any confidence in but Jesus is the only solid bedrock I have in life. It's more than just words on a page, incredible stories or about finding inner peace; it is this absurdly impossible, this strange experience of falling in Love and feeling my heart of stone being turned back into flesh.

I have seen a lot of cynicism and jaded hearts because of people...the whole problem Pascal mentioned of people having that "God shaped hole in their heart" gets cut even bigger because people love themselves more than they do God, much less other people.

The curious thing I have seen first hand is that the bigger the hurt, the bigger the pain...the more horrible things become...the greater grace may be found. I hate people who say that God can take the worst of pains and make it beautiful...because it is true and because of how insecure I am. I am too insecure to trust that the One whom I love can take my pain, my bitterness and turn it into something wonderful...there is a strange paradox of how I preach 'faith, hope and love' and the second I get hurt is the second I start giving up on God, people...and myself.

Choosing to forgive someone for the pain, the evil they have done to you isn't the same as approving of their actions. Choosing to stick your neck out and say "I forgive you because Jesus loves me, loves you and has forgiven me so I am forgiving you." Isn't the same as of approving of the offender's actions.

But it is choosing to let the pain change you, push you beyond the complacency that comes with bitterness and pain.

It is choosing to turn stagnate water into wine and letting joy back inside the empty house.

I want to put the past into the past and leave it there, I feel the weariness weighing on me for past debts and hurts that I am so sick of carrying. The burden of the past is too much to bear and I have carried it because I forget who I am and why it is I am alive.

I want to move on in life, move past the aches of the past and let the tears be dried so I can see the beauty in life again. I'm so sick of loosing myself to the base emotions and forgetting what it means to be alive.

Grace, pure and beautiful grace. Grace enough to wipe away the stains and enough to ease the pain. Grace enough to feel, grace enough to love and grace enough to begin to believe again.

Having a check list for life is missing the point, showing up and willing to give people hugs and tell them that they loved...now that is much closer to living life. Berating people for their shortcomings and making them feel judged by God is helping no one...it is just holding up a mirror to show the emptiness in that person whose judges.

How bitter, how egotistical and how narcissistic does a person have to be to take on the mantle of judge, of whom Jesus is the only One rightful, Holy and just in doing?

Grace, forgiveness, Love...such powerful words meant for being shared between Jesus and all of us. Real relationships, real love comes when we lay down our arms and choose to be a family together. People are broken and in need of love...we can't fix anyone but we can show them a flicker of the Divine Love when we choose to let go of the problems we can't fix and instead choose to live life.



"And we love to wear a badge, a uniform
And we love to fly a flag.
But I won't let others live in Hell
As we divide against each other
And we fight amongst ourselves.
Too set in our ways to try to rearrange
Too right to be wrong, in this rebel song.

Let the bells ring out
Let the bells wring out
Is there nothing left?
Is there, is there nothing left,
Is honesty what you want?

A generation without name
Ripped and torn.
Nothing to lose, nothing to gain
Nothing at all.
And if you can't help yourself
Well, take a look around you
When others need your time
You say it's time to go.
It's your time.

Angry words won't stop the fight
Two wrongs won't make it right.
A new heart is what I need
Oh God, make it bleed.
Is there nothing left?"
-U2, "Like a Song..."

Quote of the Day:

“Sometimes I lie awake at night, and ask, 'Where have I gone wrong?' Then a voice says to me, 'This is going to take more than one night.'”
-Charles M. Schulz

Pain in My Head, Pain in the Soul

I feel like every effort I make with..trying to understand or make things better with...family things...I make worse.

I can't win...so I will not continue to play that kind of game.

I just...all I know to do is pray and hope, hope and pray...I am sick of pain and hurting...I just want to do the right thing and honestly...half the time I do not know...and most of the time I know nothing at all.

Can there ever be peace in the human heart?
Or will everything I do simply cause more pain?
More ache? More destruction?

Quote of the Day:

“Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.”
-Blaise Pascal

"It's good to be alive..."

In so many ways it's so nice to just...feel free and that the constant worry and fear is dissipating.

Last night was troublesome because my brother in law may have had a heart attack...and me being several states away and not really being able to help comfort my near hysterical sister did not...help things.

I'm so disappointed with the whole concept of...family.

Being here is redefining it in ways I'm not sure I realized.
Why is the Christian majority so ignorant and think morality exists only within our fractured and screwed up bubble?

I'm staying with people who do not share my faith...my love of Jesus and I know so many people who would be disturbed by that...who would oppose me and say it's wrong. That is such crap...I have been shown more kindness and love by those who oppose Christ than the charlatans posing as wolves in sheep clothing.

Do you have any idea how outright disturbing that is to me?

Where is this love of Christ?
It's not my faith in Jesus that is wavering...it's just my ability to even trust that other followers are sincere...it's so easy to live in a bubble and judge the world...but this isn't my goal.

I want to love Christ and have that love overflow so perpetually that is overwhelms...that is catches my breath in every way it does...and that maybe it will for others.



It has something...I find amazing and touching and moving in ways I haven't seen and felt in a while...


"These men who have turned the world upside down have now come here...they are all defying Caesar's decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus."
-Acts 17:6-7


I miss that...fire to want to turn the world upside down with Love...the biggest accusations against the early church and the ones I want to be lambasted for. I want to be called a bastard, an atheist for defying the religious and daring to love EVERYONE, those who judge and hate me...as well as the "Least of these" those who would NEVER dare to believe that Jesus loves them for them...

I may be dangerous, I may be on the line of heresy...but unless Jesus loves everyone than I am starting to feel He may love no one. It's not my place to judge or say who is worthy, who is going to Hell and who is deserving...for none of us would have dared to chosen or dared to believe we could be loved...by the Lover.

I refuse to let bigotry or religious/pious double speak be my focus...I want it to be pure love, love that cuts deep and goes beyond words...and is merely my faith being poetry in motion.

I'm going to be visiting with some friends of theirs who live what I can most politely say as being "alternative" lifestyles...and you know what? Jesus would be there, Jesus will be there.


"We have to prove that our love is real, over and over again.
But let them think what they want cause I know It'll never end.
Cause I know when it began.
And my heart still pumps twice as fast whenever You walk by.
Cause I still love you.

So I think I'll stay, caught up in silent prayer,
cause I believe in silence.
Our hearts speak the same words.
So why don't we just walk along the shoreline with our silent song?
Cause I believe in silence.
Our hearts speak the same words, the same words."
-Blindside, "Silence"

"What have I become?
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know
Goes away in the end

You could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt
If I could start again
A million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way"

Awake...?

Mostly replied to emails I got...if I missed you email me again please.
So...so...tired and sore.

Have been napping since I got in.

I do not recall much of last night.

There was some Taco Bell and tea.

They took me to a LARP that was a vampire theme.
It was actually enjoyable and I saw some incredibly nice people who were awesome actors. Don't know if I would ever do something like this because of my lack of acting skills...much more confident in the table top and online RPG RP'ing.

Coming back it was raining on the snow so I slipped and landed perfectly on my back. Still hurting bad.

Need sleep...but more than that rest.




I wish I had a church I could go to...that felt like home.
Some place I'm longing for but have never really...ever seen.

I escaped and came here to...leave it behind...all the thoughts and fears and doubts...but somehow they followed me up I-65. Somehow I am still imperfect even though I keep breaking my back on my self perfected ways...

My heart and mind are still...

Home...*sigh*

"And I know it aches, how your heart it breaks
You can only take so much
Walk on, walk on

Home, hard to know what it is if you've never had one.
Home, I can't say where it is but I know I'm going home,
that's where the hurt is.

And I know it aches and your heart it breaks
And you can only take so much
Walk on

Leave it behind
You've got to leave it behind"

So Sleepy

I made it to Chicago.
We all took turns napping in the car and driving.
So sleepy.
Took the rental car back.
Came back to their apartment.
Brain is frazzled.
I think I'm baby sitting for half an hour but the cats are doing a better job watching than I.
I feel less stress and it is nice.

There is snow!

I have emails I must reply to soon.

I have such wonderful friends that are too nice.
I have the feeling it'll be a challenging week...in ways I don't quite understand.

Profound thoughts must wait.
Jesus...help me sort it out over some sleep...I need a bit of grace to understand...

Quote of the Day:

"The road goes ever on and on Down from the door where it began. Now far ahead the Road has gone, And I must follow, if I can, Pursuing it with weary feet, Until it joins some larger way, Where many paths and errands meet. And whither then? I cannot say."
-Frodo Baggins

Quote of the Day:

"Grace is the light or electricity or juice or breeze that takes you from that isolated place and puts you with others who are as startled and embarrased and eventually grateful as you are to be there."
-Anne Lamott