Quote of the Day:

“I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare.”
-C.S. Lewis

Beauty Veiled in Pain

Perfection is lacking in the colors
as they fall like painted rain drops
moving in patterns
as echos of hope
make their way to your soul.

Hope eternal,
reflecting in everything
and faith that this kernel of love
with blossom
in this wasteland
and grow into full.

The death of hopelessness is near
and nearer still
growing as near as you are to me
with only pale distance in between
and as vivid as touching your hand
with the hope of never being released.

Everything we have strived
and hoped to hope for
with the death of pain.

Love, love given on a kiss to the breeze
as words grow and pain is realized
in ways so often untold.
Only this shred of perfection
expressed in Eternity can heal.

Believe, hope and breath
and regardless the distance
love can carry in this night
and through this sickness.

Breath and being made alive,
oh dear Muse
how can this ever be enough?

Returning Redundancy

...I am so lucky to be loved.
Even when I whine, cry and throw a temper-tantrum about being sick or in pain or social drama...the One who sang me into being still loves and holds me close...I can never understand how it works or the whys...but Love is its own reason...

I want to be more grateful and more helpful to those around me...and not just this negative downturn...but God it is so hard to focus on the positive when it feels like your insides are melting...but...I suppose Paul set the precedent of grace being more than sufficient...

It is just...is exhausting trying to be brave and that is why I have to use this blog as a verbal beating place to get out this negative in me...

I want perfection, I can feel the heartbeat of One so infinite and beautiful...and seeing the Hell we have made this world it hurts...it hurts to feel separation even though there is that renewed connection because of Jesus...

I'm so tired...and aching and just wish every thing could be made right and beautiful right now...that the ones I care about could feel Your love...I don't understand why You hide Your face and will not be seen...reveal Yourself...I am not enough and it is not like any of this was me anyway.

It's just You being nice enough to use a broken vessel...thanks...again, now and forever.

...and even more needless frustration...

Quote of the Day:

“The real problem is not why some pious, humble, believing people suffer, but why some do not.”
-C.S. Lewis

Thoughts Like Flames

Why can I have a rather awesome day but I get all upset and mopey because I manage to botch up just one single conversation out of the whole day?

I don't even know why I bother getting myself so stupidly worked up over something as complicated as taking a breath of air and trying to be myself...I can never tap into the supposed source of intelligence and wit I posses when I need them most.

I can babble like an idiot as often as need be...I just want...

I just wish the canvas of life could be rolled back and I could look into the width and breadth of eternity and see my Love...I was touched by the Eternal and Infinite tonight...for just a fleeting moment and now...it's like silence...and emptiness and I have no way of...

To feel the Eternal and have no way of expressing the complexity of the Love...the intoxication of the song that brought life into being...is there words? Can there ever be words?

I just need...

You know...but still...cries in the night, feeling so lost and displaced and not even knowing why or how this came...or could be...

I just know...I know that even though I want to give up now...I can't...

Please keep me afloat, give me the strength to break through any level of despair and remember Your face in the darkest of nights...

"Cassie (Acoustic)" - Flyleaf

Feverish Pain

So hard to focus.
Pain is so real.
Feeling lost and even though I am stationary it feels like I am tumbling and falling far away.
I do not like the sensation.
I know...I know...the thoughts are coming and going...already so lost...

I want to know the how and why...

I loose my faith so easily...when the pain is so intense.
It is times like this...like when I was in China in so much pain that I forget why I am alive and I simply wish and pray for an end to the pain. Be it death of some other means...because I despair far too easily...and seek after things that were never my own.

I am so cold.
I feel so alone.
I do not have clever words.
I feel lost and isolated.

I do not know what warmth and what it is like to not have the burning sensations robbing me of strength and focus.

Where is this?
Where to?
Why can things not simply be more easy?
Or maybe just less pain for once?

One oddly nice night.
Sickness though.

Still...so sick...and blah...feel like I've been ran over multiple times.

Quote of the Day:

“This is my depressed stance. When you're depressed, it makes a lot of difference how you stand. The worst thing you can do is straighten up and hold your head high because then you'll start to feel better. If you're going to get any joy out of being depressed, you've got to stand like this.”
-Charlie Brown

I'm not doing so bad for feeling like thawed out death.

Can't breath...gonna fall over...ack...flam building in lungs... x_X

Quote of the Day:

“A God who let us prove his existence would be an idol.”
-Dietrich Bonhoeffer

It's the small things...the very small things that make life not just enjoyable but worth living.

However...peace, hope...and love eternal are a beautiful canvas to pain a life on.

The fact that there are "Christians" who are saying the earthquake in Haiti is the judgment of God is tapping into the source of rage I normally reserve for Westboro church.

Isn't it LOVELY to have people in such direct contact with God they can not only tell us His EVERY thought but those in Heaven and in Hell?

Oh Jesus help me to learn how to love because my rage wants me to do things that would only shame You...

-Dayquil
-Gatorade
-As I Lay Dying
-Rabbinic Stories

Such an odd combination but for now it is working.

I think the fever is gone but it is so cold I would rather just wait and see...and see...

Fever...and nyquil make for some bizarre dreams...I hate vampires, why are they in my dreams?

Shoo.

I would rather dream about reading my books for class tomorrow...or sleep writing my masters thesis so I will not have to do it later.

Worst case scenario I would rather dream about a girl...granted, they tend to be as safe as dealing with a full sized dragon...but at least (some) are not vampires.

And the fever begins...ack....

Quote of the Day:

“The really good idea is always traceable back quite a long way, often to a not very good idea which sparked off another idea that was only slightly better, which somebody else misunderstood in such a way that they then said something which was really rather interesting.”
-John Cleese

I hate causing awkward moments.
I can say with quite honesty that it depresses me...I cannot help how people react...but having people look at me as though I was some sort of...thing that should be removed from their presence...it is a bit saddening.

Besides my aches and pains the only other really bad thing is I think I am coming down with a cold or something else...really bad headaches and my throat hurts and fever...

Seeing one of my best friends from my time down here at Mobile was nice...a reminder that there are other humans that live in this area. Hyperbole I know...just...

The Bible study tonight was nice...along with classes it is encouraging to see leaders actually advocating deeper learning and pushing the students to dig into the Old Testament to attempt to understand the historical context of their faith and how Christianity can only be understood from a Jewish perspective.

And rambling.
On and on and on like I do best.
Words to hear myself speak.

I'm not ready for what is next...so it is nice to know it won't be...

Whatever and ever amen.

Hope for the hopeless.

Rabbis and Such

As always with any Mashburn class, Hermeneutics is already giving me a deeper insight into the teachings of Jesus. There always is the idea of people bringing their own ideas into what literature says...the fact people twist Jesus' teachings to suit their own agenda is nothing new.

The Jewish thought of taking scripture and all the commentary built around it and going off of that...is an interesting concept. Why did certain Rabbi's feel one way towards this law and felt more that this is the appropriate interpretation?

Jesus taught with stories and questions...following in the line of Rabbis that the Pharisees themselves were not just a part of but a major part of the influence of Jewish theology for the past two thousand years.

What I'm interested in doing is reviewing the method of which Jesus taught the parables...actually attempting to look at them from the perspective of a first century Jew familiar with how Rabbis taught might actually give a better perspective on how radical and how unique Jesus' ministry and teachings were/are.

Part of the problem of being a 21st century Caucasian protestant who has grown up in spoiled America is that I have no idea what it was like to be a poor Jewish denizen being repressed by the Roman Empire.

Context for understanding any teaching, literature, poem, parable or question is important...otherwise you negate any possible meaning by the preconceived notions you bring to the table.

Hmm...more later I suppose...

To Hermeneutics and beyond!

I'm awake.

It is nice to be able to just lay here in bed for a little while.

Even with the pain and stress...it is nice to just be able to breath.

Pain is unavoidable...but I guess part of life is choosing what to do with that pain...although at the time it is hard to make any rational and logical thoughts concerning it.

I am trying not to over think things...and just take this process one step, one breath, one moment at a time. Even with all the fears and doubts running in the background...right now I feel the impossible peace that I can only successfully blame on Jesus.

I am here but I am not...

Who I am...and who I am not...multiplied by the fading vistas that surround the evening sky.

Everything and nothing at once.

Pure paradoxical contradiction that is mixed with redundancy.

But I want to feel...want to be overwhelmed by what it means to be alive.

Prayers...a lot of those right now...mixed with traces of doubt and fears of my own inadequacy. Wishing I could take on the weight of others so they could be free...prayers laced with profanity because of the injustice I see around me...

I want to feel more than just the base elements I have been engaging for a while...I want my body, my mind and soul to be taken up in the song...and I want to feel You again...I want to just let everything...everything...fade and refocus as it ever will...

Having some sense of what I am talking about what be nice as well...but I can't have everything...can I?