http://joshdies.com/2013/02/08/the-jesus-follower-vs-the-arts/
" Maybe if Christians continue to flee in the face of art and culture they will continue to run the risk of creating tired, dishonest and irrelevant art and culture of their own. This is a risk our King calls us away from as he engages the criminals, the crooks, the hookers and the sinners like you and me. For those called to be creative, as their heavenly Father is creative, there is no private Christian culture, no umbrella for believers to hide beneath. The gospel is a powerful and dangerous thing, a lamp that cannot be covered by a shade."
Saturday, February 9, 2013
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Monday, February 4, 2013
Sunday, February 3, 2013
"is it difficult to speak your mind when the world hates the things you have to say?
oh they screech and they bray, there is doubt and dismay, may the sun set on this day
when you dragged all of them effortlessly straight into the dark
while they where there they wondered:
what if the kings that we've put on their thrones aren't really kings at all?
what if they should fall?
and all of the false gods that we're prostrated before have no gracious reign in mind
what if we wake up to find ourselves coiled in their ashes?
we will finally start to wonder what it is that we should leave behind
we'll see the signs and realize there's never been a better time to overthrow the principalities
in all our words, in all our deeds
and storm the gates of hell to show them they will not prevail
if all our hopes and all our dreams fall on deaf ears
then let them see
the gates of hell will not prevail
and You've broken the chains on me
i needed to be vindicated for all of my frustrations
but dragging all my grievances was heavy as damnation
i don't need to feel so right, but I badly want to feel alive
i'm done with a contest of wills
and i'm not afraid to die"
oh they screech and they bray, there is doubt and dismay, may the sun set on this day
when you dragged all of them effortlessly straight into the dark
while they where there they wondered:
what if the kings that we've put on their thrones aren't really kings at all?
what if they should fall?
and all of the false gods that we're prostrated before have no gracious reign in mind
what if we wake up to find ourselves coiled in their ashes?
we will finally start to wonder what it is that we should leave behind
we'll see the signs and realize there's never been a better time to overthrow the principalities
in all our words, in all our deeds
and storm the gates of hell to show them they will not prevail
if all our hopes and all our dreams fall on deaf ears
then let them see
the gates of hell will not prevail
and You've broken the chains on me
i needed to be vindicated for all of my frustrations
but dragging all my grievances was heavy as damnation
i don't need to feel so right, but I badly want to feel alive
i'm done with a contest of wills
and i'm not afraid to die"
Friday, February 1, 2013
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
The Tragicomedy of Life
I don't write much on here anymore. Due to a series of increasingly impossible and stupid laptop failures I fell out of the habit and although one might say I spend more time in the 'real world' I am not sure staring at books and spending many of my free hours doing free labor at a gaming shop qualifies as real.
So what have I been doing over the time the blog has had a decline in writing (2011-Present)?
-Still working on my masters. I've actually started the thesis class this semester and may be done within the year.
-Still live in a city I hate, find unpleasant, horrible weather and is a rather dull place.
-Health isn't so much in a decline as a confusing circle as if my body doesn't know what to do with itself other than accumulate unrelated symptoms, random viruses and increased neurosises.
-Attempts to force myself to both attend and integrate into church with spectacular failing on multiple accounts.
-I technically work a couple of jobs now:
1.I drive. I have been through about a half dozen jobs at an expedited delivery service and continue to have issues with bosses having no idea who the Hell I am and by the time I start getting regular work they either leave/fired/vanish/fall into a time vortex/etc.
2.I am an unpaid employee at an amazing card/board/tabletop game store called Gamers 'N Geeks. It perhaps one of the only things in my life I find enjoyable and do not loathe with the intensity I typically reserve for myself. I make a lot of sales, banter with customers, have control over the arrangement and pricing over our stock of Magic:The Gathering cards, get paid in food, sometimes get paid in merchandise and will sometimes spend over half my week at the shop sleeping on a couch.
Sincerely it will be the only thing I miss when I leave this Hell. I have made friends, discovered new games, am actually ranked in the United States as a player in MTG and feel a sense of purpose none of my other jobs have had. Literally if I could make a living off this job I do not think I would ever be happier with work.
3.Technically I own websites with ads. I just don't post content because of forgetting, being distracted or feeling utterly uninspired.
-I had a cancer scare back in June so I made this stupid pledge to grow my hair out for Lock of Love and have learned my lesson about swearing to do something for charity that I have never attempted before. Currently the longest bits are right down around my shoulder blades and am forced to wear it in a pony tail because of the heat my hair generates. It's been almost a fully year since it has been cut and I should be able to donate it within the next couple of months.
-I've written somewhere between six to nine novels and have yet to revise a single one. I find it more enjoyable to bounce ideas around with other writers, help people develop their ideas and encourage them in their writing; and on the rare occasion I actually enjoy reading and critiquing their work. I am not sure I love writing so much as being a writer and communing with other writers....but maybe I just haven't found that niche.
-I played "World of Warcraft" for the first time in four years this past week, can't find any traces of those I used to know and went to where I met my best friend in the game, The Redridge Mountains, and wept.
-That said, my ability to let go of the past and relationships that moved on without me seems to be at an all time low.
-A girl I was best friends with in high school had been sabotaging my friendships with her boyfriend and sister. Despite being stabbed in the back, the character assassination and general loathing I was having directed at me I still am regrettable about it all.
-I have no idea how to let go.
-There are times when I feel every feeling, every relationship, every moment at once...all I have ever felt,it is overwhelming and makes me wish I could drink because this is no sane way to live. I may not be suicidal anymore but I certainly understand why people with conditions similar to mine have killed themselves. Depression, anxiety, flashbacks, panic attacks and being an empath can make for a hellish experience.
-For the record, telling someone to get over themselves and conditions typically doesn't work well. I have had well meaning people tell me that along with asking "Have you tried feeling better?" and if I did not try to censor myself I would be inclined to tell those people what anatomically impossible things they could go do with their false caring.
-I still am trying to let go of the death and loss I had in 2007.
-In ways I'm still trying to recover the identity I have lost in every single relationship because of the codependent need I had to drown myself to make someone else happy.
-I still love cheesecake.
-I still have the same best friend of 22ish years.
-I am supposedly turning twenty-seven this year.
-How can I feel so old, so young, so out of place, so out of time, so lost and still be walking on this planet? It's as if my feet are not touching the ground as I wander.
-I miss "The Matrix Online" and The Watchmen. So much drama and pain in the end....but it was one of the few things battles I fought, loss and do not regret a second of it. They closed the game, but we as a group went down on our ship heads held high standing tall and proud. Even if I lost real life friends because of aforementioned bitch from high school. I do mean bitch in the most polite and empathetic way.
-Lou Reed makes me think of you. Along with WoW, this stupid blog, novel writing, art museums, the word Muse and along with a couple choice U2 songs I associated far too strongly.
-I have had so many medical procedures, been on so much medication that my life events bleed together in a frighteningly incoherent way at times. I will try contacting people who no longer wish to talk to me, I will recall the need to drive to a job that closed down four years ago and I will get lost in the same song for hours on end.
-I stopped playing video games for a while but Steam and The Humble Bundle sales have made it easy for me to find a bunch of super cheap and fun RPGs.
-Old Doctor Who (and some of the New Series) are giving me the same comfort they did as a seven year old child who watched it Sundays on PBS.
-Am I paranoid or do most of my relationships really are one sided affairs in which I serve to further someone else while I loose myself?
-Although I have alot of the same problems from the past twenty-six years and in fact that come from the worst year of my life (2007) I can't say I, or any human for that matter, remains or can remain the same. The problems grow with you and until you deal with them won't change or do much except sometimes mutate or become worse.
-My brother died almost exactly a year ago (when I had sinus surgery). The fact I had and have no real emotions or response (besides inevitable that he would repeat the sins of our father) is what depresses me most. He died the exact same age as out dad, thirty-three. He died of the same self absorbed self abuse and he also left two innocent children who never asked to be brought into the world by such selfish bastards.
-I will never repeat the mistakes of those two fools.
-My regular blog writing mostly occurs on Tumblr now.
-I write in character as one of my old roleplaying characters from The Matrix, Lord Squishy. The url is: http://lordsquishy.tumblr.com/
-I still love U2, Showbread, Five Iron Frenzy, Brave Saint Saturn, Nine Inch Nails, Blindside and the other music.
-The more things change the more they seem to remain the same.
-I'm still living in a house with people, not really friends so much as people I manage to not disagree with violently enough to hate each other.
-I may have gotten stricter with my friendship requirements.
-Am I a therapist more than I have ever been a boyfriend?
-Why do I remain so frightened of committing and commitment?
-Can I trust you?
-Can I trust You?
-I am not sure if I am a misanthrope.
-I love people despite my general distrust, dislike and at times utter revulsion of humanity...and of myself.
-People are dirty, broken, nasty and scare me.
-Like David Bowie I am afraid of Americans, afraid I can't help it and
-I'm tired.
-I think I may try to sleep now that some of this is no longer floating in my mind.
-Doubtful but maybe I can find rest.
So what have I been doing over the time the blog has had a decline in writing (2011-Present)?
-Still working on my masters. I've actually started the thesis class this semester and may be done within the year.
-Still live in a city I hate, find unpleasant, horrible weather and is a rather dull place.
-Health isn't so much in a decline as a confusing circle as if my body doesn't know what to do with itself other than accumulate unrelated symptoms, random viruses and increased neurosises.
-Attempts to force myself to both attend and integrate into church with spectacular failing on multiple accounts.
-I technically work a couple of jobs now:
1.I drive. I have been through about a half dozen jobs at an expedited delivery service and continue to have issues with bosses having no idea who the Hell I am and by the time I start getting regular work they either leave/fired/vanish/fall into a time vortex/etc.
2.I am an unpaid employee at an amazing card/board/tabletop game store called Gamers 'N Geeks. It perhaps one of the only things in my life I find enjoyable and do not loathe with the intensity I typically reserve for myself. I make a lot of sales, banter with customers, have control over the arrangement and pricing over our stock of Magic:The Gathering cards, get paid in food, sometimes get paid in merchandise and will sometimes spend over half my week at the shop sleeping on a couch.
Sincerely it will be the only thing I miss when I leave this Hell. I have made friends, discovered new games, am actually ranked in the United States as a player in MTG and feel a sense of purpose none of my other jobs have had. Literally if I could make a living off this job I do not think I would ever be happier with work.
3.Technically I own websites with ads. I just don't post content because of forgetting, being distracted or feeling utterly uninspired.
-I had a cancer scare back in June so I made this stupid pledge to grow my hair out for Lock of Love and have learned my lesson about swearing to do something for charity that I have never attempted before. Currently the longest bits are right down around my shoulder blades and am forced to wear it in a pony tail because of the heat my hair generates. It's been almost a fully year since it has been cut and I should be able to donate it within the next couple of months.
-I've written somewhere between six to nine novels and have yet to revise a single one. I find it more enjoyable to bounce ideas around with other writers, help people develop their ideas and encourage them in their writing; and on the rare occasion I actually enjoy reading and critiquing their work. I am not sure I love writing so much as being a writer and communing with other writers....but maybe I just haven't found that niche.
-I played "World of Warcraft" for the first time in four years this past week, can't find any traces of those I used to know and went to where I met my best friend in the game, The Redridge Mountains, and wept.
-That said, my ability to let go of the past and relationships that moved on without me seems to be at an all time low.
-A girl I was best friends with in high school had been sabotaging my friendships with her boyfriend and sister. Despite being stabbed in the back, the character assassination and general loathing I was having directed at me I still am regrettable about it all.
-I have no idea how to let go.
-There are times when I feel every feeling, every relationship, every moment at once...all I have ever felt,it is overwhelming and makes me wish I could drink because this is no sane way to live. I may not be suicidal anymore but I certainly understand why people with conditions similar to mine have killed themselves. Depression, anxiety, flashbacks, panic attacks and being an empath can make for a hellish experience.
-For the record, telling someone to get over themselves and conditions typically doesn't work well. I have had well meaning people tell me that along with asking "Have you tried feeling better?" and if I did not try to censor myself I would be inclined to tell those people what anatomically impossible things they could go do with their false caring.
-I still am trying to let go of the death and loss I had in 2007.
-In ways I'm still trying to recover the identity I have lost in every single relationship because of the codependent need I had to drown myself to make someone else happy.
-I still love cheesecake.
-I still have the same best friend of 22ish years.
-I am supposedly turning twenty-seven this year.
-How can I feel so old, so young, so out of place, so out of time, so lost and still be walking on this planet? It's as if my feet are not touching the ground as I wander.
-I miss "The Matrix Online" and The Watchmen. So much drama and pain in the end....but it was one of the few things battles I fought, loss and do not regret a second of it. They closed the game, but we as a group went down on our ship heads held high standing tall and proud. Even if I lost real life friends because of aforementioned bitch from high school. I do mean bitch in the most polite and empathetic way.
-Lou Reed makes me think of you. Along with WoW, this stupid blog, novel writing, art museums, the word Muse and along with a couple choice U2 songs I associated far too strongly.
-I have had so many medical procedures, been on so much medication that my life events bleed together in a frighteningly incoherent way at times. I will try contacting people who no longer wish to talk to me, I will recall the need to drive to a job that closed down four years ago and I will get lost in the same song for hours on end.
-I stopped playing video games for a while but Steam and The Humble Bundle sales have made it easy for me to find a bunch of super cheap and fun RPGs.
-Old Doctor Who (and some of the New Series) are giving me the same comfort they did as a seven year old child who watched it Sundays on PBS.
-Am I paranoid or do most of my relationships really are one sided affairs in which I serve to further someone else while I loose myself?
-Although I have alot of the same problems from the past twenty-six years and in fact that come from the worst year of my life (2007) I can't say I, or any human for that matter, remains or can remain the same. The problems grow with you and until you deal with them won't change or do much except sometimes mutate or become worse.
-My brother died almost exactly a year ago (when I had sinus surgery). The fact I had and have no real emotions or response (besides inevitable that he would repeat the sins of our father) is what depresses me most. He died the exact same age as out dad, thirty-three. He died of the same self absorbed self abuse and he also left two innocent children who never asked to be brought into the world by such selfish bastards.
-I will never repeat the mistakes of those two fools.
-My regular blog writing mostly occurs on Tumblr now.
-I write in character as one of my old roleplaying characters from The Matrix, Lord Squishy. The url is: http://lordsquishy.tumblr.com/
-I still love U2, Showbread, Five Iron Frenzy, Brave Saint Saturn, Nine Inch Nails, Blindside and the other music.
-The more things change the more they seem to remain the same.
-I'm still living in a house with people, not really friends so much as people I manage to not disagree with violently enough to hate each other.
-I may have gotten stricter with my friendship requirements.
-Am I a therapist more than I have ever been a boyfriend?
-Why do I remain so frightened of committing and commitment?
-Can I trust you?
-Can I trust You?
-I am not sure if I am a misanthrope.
-I love people despite my general distrust, dislike and at times utter revulsion of humanity...and of myself.
-People are dirty, broken, nasty and scare me.
-Like David Bowie I am afraid of Americans, afraid I can't help it and
-I'm tired.
-I think I may try to sleep now that some of this is no longer floating in my mind.
-Doubtful but maybe I can find rest.
Quote of the Day:
"I see it all perfectly; there are two possible
situations - one can either do this or that. My honest opinion and my
friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it - you will regret both."
-Soren Kierkegaard
-Soren Kierkegaard
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Friday, January 11, 2013
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
New Year
Happy new year everyone.
Another year, another time and experience.
Curious to see where the madness might go this year...
Another year, another time and experience.
Curious to see where the madness might go this year...
Monday, December 31, 2012
Friday, December 21, 2012
Apocalypse 2012
...well so far this has been a rather dull Apocalypse. Maybe the problem is the lack of spontaneity in world-ending-events? It's sort of like waking up on Christmas to no presents...I mean, not seeing a horde of zombies or multiple mushroom clouds off in the horizon just makes for a very lackluster apocalyptic experience.
Better luck next time?
(And I refuse to even make a snide remark about the number of Christians who were actually concerned about this date. I would mention something about reading their Bible but what's the point when it's most likely being used as a dusty paper weight.)
Better luck next time?
(And I refuse to even make a snide remark about the number of Christians who were actually concerned about this date. I would mention something about reading their Bible but what's the point when it's most likely being used as a dusty paper weight.)
Monday, December 17, 2012
Quote of the Day:
"How do I turn this into something I believe,
When it’s something I’ve been told and something I’ve been taught?
How do I turn this into something that I need?
I’ll be lavishly controlled and be someone that I’m not.
Believing in love, believing in hope, surrendering all of my will,
Believing in nothing is scary, believing in something is scarier still.
Believing in love, believing in hope, surrendering all of my will,
Believing in nothing is scary, believing in something is scarier still."
-Showbread, "Precursor"
When it’s something I’ve been told and something I’ve been taught?
How do I turn this into something that I need?
I’ll be lavishly controlled and be someone that I’m not.
Believing in love, believing in hope, surrendering all of my will,
Believing in nothing is scary, believing in something is scarier still.
Believing in love, believing in hope, surrendering all of my will,
Believing in nothing is scary, believing in something is scarier still."
-Showbread, "Precursor"
Friday, December 7, 2012
Dream a Little Dream
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Pain.
Tired.
Wishing I could dream again.
Beauty of beauty,
be not too far from me.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Pain.
Tired.
Wishing I could dream again.
Beauty of beauty,
be not too far from me.
Monday, December 3, 2012
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Farewell 'Friendship'
A wonderful morning to be rid of old trash.
Cutting ties.
Letting go.
Remembering what it's like to smile because of true friendship.
Not fair weather uselessness.
All I can do is simply laugh.
What silly, silly people.
And what did they think I want?
More than a conversation?
Presumption silliness.
Time is passing,
fleeting
and increasing as the clock speeds bye.
I haven't had the time
but I must bid farewell.
Goodnight and goodnight.
Cutting ties.
Letting go.
Remembering what it's like to smile because of true friendship.
Not fair weather uselessness.
All I can do is simply laugh.
What silly, silly people.
And what did they think I want?
More than a conversation?
Presumption silliness.
Time is passing,
fleeting
and increasing as the clock speeds bye.
I haven't had the time
but I must bid farewell.
Goodnight and goodnight.
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
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