God...I just want to be happy but I can't for...certain people.
Is this jealousy?
That people can take vows that I don't understand? Is that what this is all about? Or is it visceral, the physical and sexual?
I mean...I can't even really talk about it to anyone who understands because all these thoughts revolve around people...person...things and thoughts...back in 2005 maybe...something like that.
What the Hell Jesus?
Why am I so self absorbed that I try to hide it as being concern for other people? I don't care most of the time...it's an accident that I help people a lot of the time. And this isn't false humility...this is me just being Matthew.
I'm broken.
I'm tired.
I laugh at random and horrible things.
I wish for hurricanes and huge storms and destruction and get sad when the storms do not disrupt normal life.
I am the creep wanting a zombie apocalypse just so I don't have to worry about renewing my driver's license in three years.
I heard a Voice say 'I love you' and I have believed it.
I'm staking my life on it.
I can't sacrifice my love for my First Love for anything else...because everything is just pale coal in comparison.
The Love burns me and makes me feel again...it reconnects these nerves to my heart I have tried desperately to disconnect. My plot has always been that if I can kill the ability to feel I can kill my need to hear...to obey...but every step I take away I'm buffeted back by this hurricane of love.
This furious and incomprehensible love.
What am I?
Who am I?
Why was I chosen?
Why not someone else?
Why do You even love me?
Why should You even care?
The morning and the coming day are just rushing forward to meet us.
I've lost another musical endeavor and it hurts...hurts like I did when I dropped seminary...when I failed Greek...when I had my heart thrown out the window...when I've broken a girl's heart...when I ate lunch by myself everyday in my dorm room the last two semesters of school because I was terrified of being in the lunch room...I can hear the episodes of Bleach and taste the stale premade Nestea.
I've walked endless lanes around Mobile, in Orr Park...day and night...just seeing faces and water fall...
I'm seeing dinosaur fossils in my mind and the coffee shop...Javs City...how that was such a fundamental social experience from my first days of school to the last months.
None of this matters because the people there will never see this and if they do they will never realize it is about them...I miss the friendships...I miss knowing Jesus was going to do something special...I don't want to move forward...I want the past because I can live there...sad and numb to life.
I'm running...not to stand still but to escape...and nothing sill.
Nothing.
The rawness.
How can I reconcile all of these images?
Muse!
Mistress of the night and written word...SPEAK TO ME!
How might I reconcile all of these Matthews, all of these different views into one? How do I bring one split back to being one? How do I rectify all this damage before it is too late?
Breath into me.
Kiss me with your sweet Spirit and give me energy, help me to reclaim what it means to even be human.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Sunday, August 16, 2009
"The Hand That Feeds" - Nine Inch Nails
You're keeping in step
In the line
Got your chin held high and you feel just fine
Cause you do
What you're told
But inside your heart it is black and it's hollow and it's cold
Just how deep do you believe?
Will you bite the hand that feeds?
Will you chew until it bleeds?
Can you get up off your knees?
Are you brave enough to see?
Do you want to change it?
What if this whole crusade's
A charade
And behind it all there's a price to be paid
For the blood
On which we dine
Justified in the name of the holy and the divine
Just how deep do you believe?
Will you bite the hand that feeds?
Will you chew until it bleeds?
Can you get up off your knees?
Are you brave enough to see?
Do you want to change it?
So naive
I keep holding on to what I want to believe
I can see
But I keep holding on and on and on and on
In the line
Got your chin held high and you feel just fine
Cause you do
What you're told
But inside your heart it is black and it's hollow and it's cold
Just how deep do you believe?
Will you bite the hand that feeds?
Will you chew until it bleeds?
Can you get up off your knees?
Are you brave enough to see?
Do you want to change it?
What if this whole crusade's
A charade
And behind it all there's a price to be paid
For the blood
On which we dine
Justified in the name of the holy and the divine
Just how deep do you believe?
Will you bite the hand that feeds?
Will you chew until it bleeds?
Can you get up off your knees?
Are you brave enough to see?
Do you want to change it?
So naive
I keep holding on to what I want to believe
I can see
But I keep holding on and on and on and on
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Aiiiarrrgh!!!
I just missed Showbread.
They played forty five minutes from my house.
It was an early evening concert.
It was tonight.
Ten dollars.
God what are you doing to me?
They played forty five minutes from my house.
It was an early evening concert.
It was tonight.
Ten dollars.
God what are you doing to me?
1 Corinthians 4:1-15
Don't imagine us leaders to be something we aren't. We are servants of Christ, not his masters. We are guides into God's most sublime secrets, not security guards posted to protect them. The requirements for a good guide are reliability and accurate knowledge. It matters very little to me what you think of me, even less where I rank in popular opinion. I don't even rank myself. Comparisons in these matters are pointless. I'm not aware of anything that would disqualify me from being a good guide for you, but that doesn't mean much. The Master makes that judgment.
So don't get ahead of the Master and jump to conclusions with your judgments before all the evidence is in. When he comes, he will bring out in the open and place in evidence all kinds of things we never even dreamed of—inner motives and purposes and prayers. Only then will any one of us get to hear the "Well done!" of God.
All I'm doing right now, friends, is showing how these things pertain to Apollos and me so that you will learn restraint and not rush into making judgments without knowing all the facts. It's important to look at things from God's point of view. I would rather not see you inflating or deflating reputations based on mere hearsay.
For who do you know that really knows you, knows your heart? And even if they did, is there anything they would discover in you that you could take credit for? Isn't everything you have and everything you are sheer gifts from God? So what's the point of all this comparing and competing? You already have all you need. You already have more access to God than you can handle. Without bringing either Apollos or me into it, you're sitting on top of the world—at least God's world—and we're right there, sitting alongside you!
It seems to me that God has put us who bear his Message on stage in a theater in which no one wants to buy a ticket. We're something everyone stands around and stares at, like an accident in the street. We're the Messiah's misfits. You might be sure of yourselves, but we live in the midst of frailties and uncertainties. You might be well-thought-of by others, but we're mostly kicked around. Much of the time we don't have enough to eat, we wear patched and threadbare clothes, we get doors slammed in our faces, and we pick up odd jobs anywhere we can to eke out a living. When they call us names, we say, "God bless you." When they spread rumors about us, we put in a good word for them. We're treated like garbage, potato peelings from the culture's kitchen. And it's not getting any better.
I'm not writing all this as a neighborhood scold just to make you feel rotten. I'm writing as a father to you, my children. I love you and want you to grow up well, not spoiled. There are a lot of people around who can't wait to tell you what you've done wrong, but there aren't many fathers willing to take the time and effort to help you grow up. It was as Jesus helped me proclaim God's Message to you that I became your father. I'm not, you know, asking you to do anything I'm not already doing myself.
So don't get ahead of the Master and jump to conclusions with your judgments before all the evidence is in. When he comes, he will bring out in the open and place in evidence all kinds of things we never even dreamed of—inner motives and purposes and prayers. Only then will any one of us get to hear the "Well done!" of God.
All I'm doing right now, friends, is showing how these things pertain to Apollos and me so that you will learn restraint and not rush into making judgments without knowing all the facts. It's important to look at things from God's point of view. I would rather not see you inflating or deflating reputations based on mere hearsay.
For who do you know that really knows you, knows your heart? And even if they did, is there anything they would discover in you that you could take credit for? Isn't everything you have and everything you are sheer gifts from God? So what's the point of all this comparing and competing? You already have all you need. You already have more access to God than you can handle. Without bringing either Apollos or me into it, you're sitting on top of the world—at least God's world—and we're right there, sitting alongside you!
It seems to me that God has put us who bear his Message on stage in a theater in which no one wants to buy a ticket. We're something everyone stands around and stares at, like an accident in the street. We're the Messiah's misfits. You might be sure of yourselves, but we live in the midst of frailties and uncertainties. You might be well-thought-of by others, but we're mostly kicked around. Much of the time we don't have enough to eat, we wear patched and threadbare clothes, we get doors slammed in our faces, and we pick up odd jobs anywhere we can to eke out a living. When they call us names, we say, "God bless you." When they spread rumors about us, we put in a good word for them. We're treated like garbage, potato peelings from the culture's kitchen. And it's not getting any better.
I'm not writing all this as a neighborhood scold just to make you feel rotten. I'm writing as a father to you, my children. I love you and want you to grow up well, not spoiled. There are a lot of people around who can't wait to tell you what you've done wrong, but there aren't many fathers willing to take the time and effort to help you grow up. It was as Jesus helped me proclaim God's Message to you that I became your father. I'm not, you know, asking you to do anything I'm not already doing myself.
Speaking of Garbage
What is this faith of mine?
What is it I truly believe?
I've been on this Jesus kick since I was nine years old and I've been playing at being Bono since age fourteen.
What is this faith?
Is it because of this deep set empathy I have, seeing people hurting and feel that hurt in my soul, that causes me to fall on broken knees crying?
Is it for faith that I cut myself with words of criticism and bitter hate?
Is it for faith that I disgrace myself day in and out being reluctant to choose or decide?
Is it for faith that I have forgotten the Face of my Father?
Is it for love that I curse and spite those who disagree with me?
Is it for the sake of hope that I bring myself low just so I can open my eyes to see people stare at me?
Has this been a farce?
Has this all been an obscene parade with the focus on myself?
"We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer kindly. We have become the scum of the earth, the garbage of the world—right up to this moment."
-1 Corinthians 4:12
What is it I truly believe?
I've been on this Jesus kick since I was nine years old and I've been playing at being Bono since age fourteen.
What is this faith?
Is it because of this deep set empathy I have, seeing people hurting and feel that hurt in my soul, that causes me to fall on broken knees crying?
Is it for faith that I cut myself with words of criticism and bitter hate?
Is it for faith that I disgrace myself day in and out being reluctant to choose or decide?
Is it for faith that I have forgotten the Face of my Father?
Is it for love that I curse and spite those who disagree with me?
Is it for the sake of hope that I bring myself low just so I can open my eyes to see people stare at me?
Has this been a farce?
Has this all been an obscene parade with the focus on myself?
"We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer kindly. We have become the scum of the earth, the garbage of the world—right up to this moment."
-1 Corinthians 4:12
I can bike a half hour and cause my lungs to burn and my body to ache...my heart to burn and my eyes to cry...but it cannot silence my mind nor my soul...nothing silences their pestilence bickering.
Words in the darkness...crying out you are never alone.
Man versus himself.
Man versus machine.
Man versus the world.
Mankind versus me.
The struggles go on,
The wisdom I lack,
The burdens keep pilling
Up on my back.
So hard to breathe,
To take the next step.
The mountain is high,
I wait in the depths.
Yearning for grace,
And hoping for peace.
Dear God...
Increase.
Healing hands of God have mercy on our unclean souls once again.
Jesus Christ, light of the world burning bright within our hearts forever.
Freedom means love without condition,
without a beginning or an end.
Here's my heart, let it be forever Your's,
Only You can make every new day seem so new.
Hallelujah.
Words in the darkness...crying out you are never alone.
Man versus himself.
Man versus machine.
Man versus the world.
Mankind versus me.
The struggles go on,
The wisdom I lack,
The burdens keep pilling
Up on my back.
So hard to breathe,
To take the next step.
The mountain is high,
I wait in the depths.
Yearning for grace,
And hoping for peace.
Dear God...
Increase.
Healing hands of God have mercy on our unclean souls once again.
Jesus Christ, light of the world burning bright within our hearts forever.
Freedom means love without condition,
without a beginning or an end.
Here's my heart, let it be forever Your's,
Only You can make every new day seem so new.
Hallelujah.
Friday, August 14, 2009
"The Road goes ever on..."
Right now I'm listening to a mixture of Ben Folds and Streetlight Manifesto so I can pass the time until I leave. It's not that I miss home (I do miss Home Home however, if it is possible to miss somewhere you've never been) but I'm so exhausted from the shared space. I do not understand how people are able to be in enclosed areas like this and not go crazy.
Regardless the future awaits.
Yesterday I went to have a consult with the pain doctor and his number one suggestion for me was to go to a three week pain management course so that my symptoms do not worsen and hopefully it will lead to me getting a somewhat better sense of this magical thing called 'health'.
The only foreseeable problem is that this place is located in a distant land known as Rochester, Minnesota. Turns out it is a real state and is south of this strange land called Canada that I thought existed only in John Candy films. Who knew health care would also teach me elementary level geography?
I'll find out in the coming weeks whether or not Insurance will pay for this, if I can get in and when exactly I'll be there. Assuming things go through with the clinic I'm looking into staying with friends both before and after so this is looking like this might turn into a month (+) longer exodus.
It's been a strange week. More than I can ever write about happened...strange thoughts and occurrences...people I will never see...paintings that were made of various shades of living color.
It's been easy for me to live with this notion that one day everything will slide into place...clarity will come and everything will be waiting for me. As if the Universe would hold everything out on a silver etched platter and then the Universe would just tip his at at me and walk off with a stride that would make
Zaphod Beeblebrox blush.
I do believe everything happens as it will for a purpose. Some might call it faith, predestination, ka, politics, karma, life, drugs or whatever...I think of it as being the love of God holding us and letting us live despite our screw ups.
I don't know how to stop and just breath. To be able to look around and enjoy the smells, sounds and taste of where I am...I have few enjoyable moments of just enjoying life from college. Not that people didn't try to involve me but I was too busy with my own world to really just be thankful I was enjoying standing there.
If that makes sense.
I almost feel that I'm over thinking over thinking.
"There's never gonna be a moment of truth for you
While the world is watching
All you need is the thing you forgotten
And that's to learn to live with what you are"
-Ben Folds, "Learn to Live With What You Are"
The point, I think, is that...it is nice to just sit here on this hotel bed and watch the sun rise over the Atlantic ocean. It is nice to stretch my legs out and feel the sheets just lay there. It's nice to know that I can breath and just think for a few more moments.
I want simply try to enjoy and not let so many small things annoy me beyond expression.
I don't know where this road is going...and for now I think that is okay. I've got my laptop in one hand, my Bible in another, my backpack loaded up and my baseball bat on standby.
World I am ready.
"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 eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say. "
-Frodo Baggins
Regardless the future awaits.
Yesterday I went to have a consult with the pain doctor and his number one suggestion for me was to go to a three week pain management course so that my symptoms do not worsen and hopefully it will lead to me getting a somewhat better sense of this magical thing called 'health'.
The only foreseeable problem is that this place is located in a distant land known as Rochester, Minnesota. Turns out it is a real state and is south of this strange land called Canada that I thought existed only in John Candy films. Who knew health care would also teach me elementary level geography?
I'll find out in the coming weeks whether or not Insurance will pay for this, if I can get in and when exactly I'll be there. Assuming things go through with the clinic I'm looking into staying with friends both before and after so this is looking like this might turn into a month (+) longer exodus.
It's been a strange week. More than I can ever write about happened...strange thoughts and occurrences...people I will never see...paintings that were made of various shades of living color.
It's been easy for me to live with this notion that one day everything will slide into place...clarity will come and everything will be waiting for me. As if the Universe would hold everything out on a silver etched platter and then the Universe would just tip his at at me and walk off with a stride that would make
Zaphod Beeblebrox blush.
I do believe everything happens as it will for a purpose. Some might call it faith, predestination, ka, politics, karma, life, drugs or whatever...I think of it as being the love of God holding us and letting us live despite our screw ups.
I don't know how to stop and just breath. To be able to look around and enjoy the smells, sounds and taste of where I am...I have few enjoyable moments of just enjoying life from college. Not that people didn't try to involve me but I was too busy with my own world to really just be thankful I was enjoying standing there.
If that makes sense.
I almost feel that I'm over thinking over thinking.
"There's never gonna be a moment of truth for you
While the world is watching
All you need is the thing you forgotten
And that's to learn to live with what you are"
-Ben Folds, "Learn to Live With What You Are"
The point, I think, is that...it is nice to just sit here on this hotel bed and watch the sun rise over the Atlantic ocean. It is nice to stretch my legs out and feel the sheets just lay there. It's nice to know that I can breath and just think for a few more moments.
I want simply try to enjoy and not let so many small things annoy me beyond expression.
I don't know where this road is going...and for now I think that is okay. I've got my laptop in one hand, my Bible in another, my backpack loaded up and my baseball bat on standby.
World I am ready.
"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 eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say. "
-Frodo Baggins
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Galatians 2:20-21
What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn't work. So I quit being a "law man" so that I could be God's man. Christ's life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not "mine," but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that.
Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God's grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily.
Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God's grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily.
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