Seriously? Right now?
You have no sense of tact up there...or maybe just enjoy seeing me squirm.
Yargh.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Portraits in Red
I just so badly long for the words that I need to tell you, so you might know how much I hate you, how the pain is simply searing as it courses through my veins. I lack the vernacular to just simply express my distaste of you.
Vocal inflections and screams can never give justice to the absolute disgust your presence brings, nor can it give account for the revolting taste in my mouth at the merest mention of your name.
It can't be hate because hate would mean I have loved.
It is more bare, more visceral.
Your existence pains me beyond anyone rational comprehension.
There is no separating the two of us, the duality of existing as one in two parts and two dwelling in one.
We share the same smirk and a gaze in the mirror is just a look out another window.
Everything I ever pretended to love was just so I could learn properly how to hate. Every lie spoke through warmly smiling lips was preparation so I might recognize you. The basis of my life is this moment of recognition of a reconditioning.
The very blood that runs inside of you is nothing short of cursed, a corrosive liquid
prolonging the life of one who understands nothing but the wicked. A disgusting waste of organic material that is simply acting as a human life.
I can't be this person you wanted. You run these chemicals and inflame my neurological passages with impulses to ravage life as thought it were nothing more then my playground. That nothing in life exists apart from my control and my desires.
The thing I hate most is this bitter taste. This chalky, bitter and repulsive taste of sin. Nothing is satisfying, everything is disgusting because it is nothing more then a mixture of organic trash that is slowly rotting and coming apart. The smell is nauseating and the end is just the same, this impossibly horrific death of thought, death of emotions and death of self.
None of these lies can serve to compel me to serve you.
The created must have a creator, just because you claim ownership does not mean you are equipped to handle anything, much less the task of loving on so as selfishly disgusting as yourself.
Nothing is a mantra you can sing and clutch to. Nothing is all that you possess and own in the most intimate of ways. This impossible contradiction, this juxtaposition of carnal thought mixed with spiritual undertones. These relentlessly wild thoughts demanding religious overtones.
Symphonic in its mating calls and dying screams. Contradictory, impulsive and the sum mass of all other lies. A defining role to be played.
Embellishment, nothing more and nothing less.
The very sight of you makes me so sick.
Vocal inflections and screams can never give justice to the absolute disgust your presence brings, nor can it give account for the revolting taste in my mouth at the merest mention of your name.
It can't be hate because hate would mean I have loved.
It is more bare, more visceral.
Your existence pains me beyond anyone rational comprehension.
There is no separating the two of us, the duality of existing as one in two parts and two dwelling in one.
We share the same smirk and a gaze in the mirror is just a look out another window.
Everything I ever pretended to love was just so I could learn properly how to hate. Every lie spoke through warmly smiling lips was preparation so I might recognize you. The basis of my life is this moment of recognition of a reconditioning.
The very blood that runs inside of you is nothing short of cursed, a corrosive liquid
prolonging the life of one who understands nothing but the wicked. A disgusting waste of organic material that is simply acting as a human life.
I can't be this person you wanted. You run these chemicals and inflame my neurological passages with impulses to ravage life as thought it were nothing more then my playground. That nothing in life exists apart from my control and my desires.
The thing I hate most is this bitter taste. This chalky, bitter and repulsive taste of sin. Nothing is satisfying, everything is disgusting because it is nothing more then a mixture of organic trash that is slowly rotting and coming apart. The smell is nauseating and the end is just the same, this impossibly horrific death of thought, death of emotions and death of self.
None of these lies can serve to compel me to serve you.
The created must have a creator, just because you claim ownership does not mean you are equipped to handle anything, much less the task of loving on so as selfishly disgusting as yourself.
Nothing is a mantra you can sing and clutch to. Nothing is all that you possess and own in the most intimate of ways. This impossible contradiction, this juxtaposition of carnal thought mixed with spiritual undertones. These relentlessly wild thoughts demanding religious overtones.
Symphonic in its mating calls and dying screams. Contradictory, impulsive and the sum mass of all other lies. A defining role to be played.
Embellishment, nothing more and nothing less.
The very sight of you makes me so sick.
Friday, September 12, 2008
It would be so easy for me to pretend, to be something I'm not.
It would be all to easy for me to be the me you would love to see.
It would be nothing but easy for me to slide down these stairs,
wear a stupid grin and just pretend it's not really me.
But at the end of the day,
it is just me under this skin.
Behind the clothes and stupid grin
is just this kid.
At the end of your day,
you may see what you want
but you seem to not see me.
It would be easy for me to sit back and play this game,
let the dice roll and take my place.
See you with a smile and move up a couple of spaces.
But in the end it'll just be me, nothing more and nothing less.
Unless you see me as me, you'll never know who me is.
It would be all to easy for me to be the me you would love to see.
It would be nothing but easy for me to slide down these stairs,
wear a stupid grin and just pretend it's not really me.
But at the end of the day,
it is just me under this skin.
Behind the clothes and stupid grin
is just this kid.
At the end of your day,
you may see what you want
but you seem to not see me.
It would be easy for me to sit back and play this game,
let the dice roll and take my place.
See you with a smile and move up a couple of spaces.
But in the end it'll just be me, nothing more and nothing less.
Unless you see me as me, you'll never know who me is.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
On the Oddity of Sanity
Reading through my blog on Myspace...I just sort of have come to the realization that circumstances have been changing inside and around me...but I, myself, am not changing.
The same pain I felt a year ago, two years ago...it is all the same.
How much am I to blame for this? Is this my fault for not healing? Have I refused to allow any light inside of me, is it just because I love the darkness too much?
It's not like I sent out a sincerely humble request that I be born in the summer of 1986. Personally, I like to think that if I would have been told in advance I was coming to earth (assuming we exist in any form pre-earth form, but that is another migraine for another time that should only be taken in this current context for it's somewhat forthcoming comedic value)I would have gone kicking, screaming and grabbing onto anything bolted down, rather then take a one way ticket down here.
I am Matthew Adam Pike. The son of David and Pam, the grandson of a group of mostly dead people who of only one I was close to (Clovis, my mom's mom) and only one other I know of is alive (John, my dad's dad). I have a lot of aunts, uncles and a lot of cousins.
I was born in the great year of 1986 in a hospital in Birmingham and a couple of days later was brought to live in this small village called Jemison.
Honestly, I really doubt many people choose to live here willingly. They were either born here, ran out of gas/money while traveling, have no concept of a bigger world or are simply masochistic at heart. There could be the rare person that enjoys it here but I will simply chalk that up to mad rumors or cases of temporal insanity.
I went to the aptly named Jemison Elementary and High schools. Grew up around the same group of people most of my life as well, be it at school or church. I vaguely remember a few names here and there but that isn't the important part, what matters is that it was the typical small town in the south eastern section of the United States in the 1990's up until 2004.
The people lived out their confusing teenage thoughts full of grand schemes and impossible quantities of dramatic angst (of which I am only slightly guilty of both).
I'm not sure which is more amazing, the fact I managed to survive all these years of schooling while being such a nut case or the face I managed to do so in such a way that it actually looked like I knew what I was doing.
I myself endured horrors such as a five year long crush on a girl, awkward ideas as to what fashion was, somehow being the leader of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (when I have no athletic bone in my body and none of the main members were athletes. Seriously people, how did we do that for four years with no name change? Has anyone taken a marketing class since then?), a ridiculous amount of time in band only pretending to play saxophone (you try doing marching formations with a twenty lbs sax swinging from your neck and see if you can play a note), so many throughly bizarre experiences with religion, spirituality, church and the like...I mean I could go on but we all have lives like this.
We all have good and bad memories.
Some are amazing and cause our hearts to pound almost out of our chest...other memories make our faces burn and tears start to run out...bitter sweet moments of love and stabbing betrayals of the heart.
Things that make absolutely no sense and still we have to accept and move on.
Utterly bizarre contradictions of our own personal character and being and yet, yet we still live and we still have to push on.
Music, words and friendships are the three things that have kept me sane over the years.
Music.
I honestly have no clue what it is that makes me love music as desperately as I do. Really, I do not understand music theory all that well and have incredibly sub par skills, yet I was able to bluff my way in marching band for six years and supposedly I have been in a real band for the past nine years...not sure what those count for but it does count for something in my mind.
I have to listen to music and when I do it sweeps me away. I attach memories, thoughts, hopes, daydreams, my writings and everything in life to songs. There are certain songs I listen to when I am sad, when I am happy, when I cry, when I hurt, when I feel like being silly, when I need encouragement and when I just have to break down and realize how little of life really matters.
Nothing I have ever experience can come close to the extreme rush of playing on stage. The drymouth and pre-show shakes you get before every show, no matter how small or big the audience. The incredible beating of your heart as you take the stage and you hear the drums erupt like a canon, the aggressive riffs fly from the guitar and then you know, you just KNOW you are going to screw up your cue...but by some miracle of God you manage to slide your fingers up the neck of the bass and start to crank out some sort of deep rumbling throb that is nothing short of a purpose giving beat.
Why do I love playing so much, being in a band?
It is a way of having identity and fellowship. I am a bass player at heart. I see no reason to play music unless you are working with others, I have ALWAYS have trouble practicing without having others around, partly because I am lazy and partly because of the need for the collaboration. The need to feel wanted and needed. It is nice, it is easy and the attention itself is so addicting.
Having a personality that is easily addicted and that thrives off of highs and lows...it is easy to loose yourself and forget who you are...happens every day of my life.
Every now and then I just have this overwhelming urge to play music again, to find a way back on a stage...but honestly I have no clue how healthy that is anyway.
Friendships and Relationships.
Two loaded words in my vocabulary.
I have always claimed that to me, my friends are what I consider to be my true family. Which is something I have always done out of a deep seated fear of family. I didn't have a perfect life growing up but, who actually did? If I had to endure the personal Hell's that some of my friends have been through I would have died, no question.
Why do some people seem to suffer more then others? Is it simply reaping what we sow? Maybe just the fact we are all screw ups anyway and how the dice fall is how they fall?
I like to think I am a fairly tolerant person but when I hear fellow Christians go on excessively about how we all deserve pain, we all deserve punishment for our sins...part of me agrees but at the same time, no one deserves the pain in their life. No matter how horrible, how evil or how screwed up they are...we all deserve love, we are supposed to be made in the imago dei, image of God, and that alone makes someone worthy of love.
Call me crazy but all of the Adolf Hitlers and leaders of genocide in the history of the world might have be a bit less crazy if they were hugged as a kid. Maybe if instead of being told how much garbage they were, it might have helped them to know that they could be accepted and loved for who they are and not who they should be. We can get into playing the what if game all day but it is still just a thought. People have to be taught to hate just as much as they have to be taught selfless and sacrificing love.
I go into that tangent for a slight purpose, I am starting to think to believe that so much of human behavior is a mixture of the chemicals exploding in our brains mixed with however we grew up.
Even if I wouldn't have grown up in a rather bad home life, I would have been a very odd and very neurotic human being. Factor in the fact I grew up in a situation where I have never seen a sane marriage or what it means to be an adult male...we sort of start to have a pattern that I believe has drastically shaped my life without knowing it.
Something that has always baffled me is how people tend to apologize to me when I say my parents got divorced when I was three and then my dad died when I was eight (or something along those lines). Don't get me wrong, it sucks but if I were to film out every last memory I have of my dad, what an odd sounding video, it would take up maybe fifteen minutes tops.
Why would people apologize? I mean, sure it is nicer then someone just laughing at me, but at the same time it is almost like they are not just apologizing for the bad circumstances but apologizing for me missing something deep and unexplainable.
I mean, it is almost like there is a REASON why we have two parents, a mother and a dad. Some sort of mystical thing that happens when you have two parents raising a kid, novel idea in todays world.
I'm starting to think that part of the reason why I tend to be so...odd, terrified of love, scared of even reasonable commitment...is because of not having a dad, not really seeing how the right kind of relationship should work.
I seem to recall reading in Anne Lamott's book "Traveling Mercies" where she mentions experiments with lab rats. That the way to ensure a rat becomes insane is to frequently and randomly change the variables in any experiments involving it. It eventually will get to a point where the rat is terrified and neurotic, it doesn't know if stepping on the switch will give it food or electrocute it and...as odd as this is I relate well to that story.
Every relationship in my life is like a switch in a rat cage. I step on it and (bearing in mind this is how my mind views things)either I get a rewarding and tasty piece of cheese (which would be an indulgent and easy stroke of my ego, some sort of affirmation of acceptance, a hug, affection or whatever) or I get a shock of the lifetime and it might be these horrible situations but...more often then naught, it is merely just dealing with hearing a valid criticism, someone loosing their temper, hearing about how disappointed with me someone is, etc.
The huge headache for me is that I am not sure how to separate the good from the bad. What I mean is that there gets to be a point where relationships become more then superficial and it terrifies me deeply. We're talking absolute fear among other things...and then it just gets to the point where I cannot tell the good from the bad. Things become really jumbled in my head and I start uncontrollably flinching when I'm touched or I jump at loud noises...weird things but it is a deep seated part of me.
So deep that I am not sure where any of it ends or begins. Could this be part of me that was made when I was born into a family with only superficial bonds?
What do you do with this? I have always felt excessively guilty about not loving my family more but to me the easiest thing is to just not care. It is easier to lock myself in my mind and segregate myself from my surroundings then it is to actually live with others. There are a lot of parts of me that no one has seen and that never want to be seen by another human.
The biggest crime anyone dating me has done is simply wanting to get to know me and unknowingly a point is reached where they hit these incredibly sensitive nerves and I responded by leaping about twelve feet in the air screaming about lemons and upon landing I would dive out the nearest window ranting about how the British were coming and Paul Revere needed to be warned.
I promise I'm not crazy.
I'm just special, in ways that only a mother and Jesus could truly appreciate.
Writing.
Why do i write?
The basic math I can figure is such:
A quarter therapeutic, a quarter for reasons of keeping my sanity, a quarter for self gratification, a quarter for having fun, a quarter because I do not know what else to do and a quarter way to express what I deem to be humor. I have always been bad at math.
There is escapism for sure but at the same time part of me just demands I write. Similar to the parts of me that demand I play music, demand I tell at least one person a year that Jesus loves them and that reminder that my one meal a day is just not healthy.
I want to write and so I do.
I want to write amazing prose, thrilling stories and use vocabulary words that even I am not sure of their meaning. So far the only of those I feel I somewhat accomplished with any real measure of absolute competency is the last one.
I would love to write songs, poems, thrilling stories but it seems like the only thing I can do that I won't delete or hide under my bed are these annoying essays about myself. Seriously, I feel like I am the worlds biggest narcissist (triple word score!) but I have no intention of stopping.
Writing this all out is therapeutic for sure, makes me feel special that I can string basic concepts of grammar together and well, also, even few months someone sends me an email about how me talking about 'such and such' was really neat and it inspired them or made them realize they were not alone.
That I admit is something that is cool and makes me want to keep writing. Sorta like how when I first read Donald Miller or Anne Lamott...you get introduced to these very likable, very witty and very human people that also happen to believe the crazy story about a first century carpenter Rabbi claiming to be God...and it makes sense/confuses them just as much as it makes sense/confuses me and even though they don't know me I feel a strong connection to their writings and their lives.
When you break things down to the bare essentials, few things in life are worth anything.
Very, very few.
One of these is supposed to be relationships but I'm not very comfortable with any of them. I really want to have them, I want to be closer to people, I want to love them and receive love...but...having the desire for normality just doesn't make it happen.
Having a relationship with God is like having this consummate relationship that sums up every other possible relationship a person could ever have with another human. Family, friendly, romantic and whatever else, it is this odd hodge podge of love that only makes sense when you stop to think that Yahweh is beyond our comprehension. Theology does a rather poor job at painting the picture of an infinite being when every thing said is impossibly insufficient and unable to really convey.
God is love.
A true and profound statement that is matched only in its utterly insufficient and near blasphemous summary.
God is.
Maybe a bit better but it doesn't reveal much.
The only reason we know about God is because he chooses to reveal himself through love, through life, through scripture and through his spirit. It doesn't make much sense but I doubt my cat ponders Quantum Physics all day either.
The point is...I write because I can't help it, I love God because I can't help it and that is okay. I don't understand all of it and if I said I did I would be a liar. Only a crazy person would claim to understand someone like Jesus. As C.S. Lewis rather wittily remarked in the Chronicles of Narnia "He isn't a tame lion".
I suppose that is a lesson I need to learn, acceptance.
Accepting I'm human and it is okay to actually be human.
Learning to accept love.
Learning I am lovable.
It is just a pity they didn't offer that as a major at the University of Mobile.
The same pain I felt a year ago, two years ago...it is all the same.
How much am I to blame for this? Is this my fault for not healing? Have I refused to allow any light inside of me, is it just because I love the darkness too much?
It's not like I sent out a sincerely humble request that I be born in the summer of 1986. Personally, I like to think that if I would have been told in advance I was coming to earth (assuming we exist in any form pre-earth form, but that is another migraine for another time that should only be taken in this current context for it's somewhat forthcoming comedic value)I would have gone kicking, screaming and grabbing onto anything bolted down, rather then take a one way ticket down here.
I am Matthew Adam Pike. The son of David and Pam, the grandson of a group of mostly dead people who of only one I was close to (Clovis, my mom's mom) and only one other I know of is alive (John, my dad's dad). I have a lot of aunts, uncles and a lot of cousins.
I was born in the great year of 1986 in a hospital in Birmingham and a couple of days later was brought to live in this small village called Jemison.
Honestly, I really doubt many people choose to live here willingly. They were either born here, ran out of gas/money while traveling, have no concept of a bigger world or are simply masochistic at heart. There could be the rare person that enjoys it here but I will simply chalk that up to mad rumors or cases of temporal insanity.
I went to the aptly named Jemison Elementary and High schools. Grew up around the same group of people most of my life as well, be it at school or church. I vaguely remember a few names here and there but that isn't the important part, what matters is that it was the typical small town in the south eastern section of the United States in the 1990's up until 2004.
The people lived out their confusing teenage thoughts full of grand schemes and impossible quantities of dramatic angst (of which I am only slightly guilty of both).
I'm not sure which is more amazing, the fact I managed to survive all these years of schooling while being such a nut case or the face I managed to do so in such a way that it actually looked like I knew what I was doing.
I myself endured horrors such as a five year long crush on a girl, awkward ideas as to what fashion was, somehow being the leader of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (when I have no athletic bone in my body and none of the main members were athletes. Seriously people, how did we do that for four years with no name change? Has anyone taken a marketing class since then?), a ridiculous amount of time in band only pretending to play saxophone (you try doing marching formations with a twenty lbs sax swinging from your neck and see if you can play a note), so many throughly bizarre experiences with religion, spirituality, church and the like...I mean I could go on but we all have lives like this.
We all have good and bad memories.
Some are amazing and cause our hearts to pound almost out of our chest...other memories make our faces burn and tears start to run out...bitter sweet moments of love and stabbing betrayals of the heart.
Things that make absolutely no sense and still we have to accept and move on.
Utterly bizarre contradictions of our own personal character and being and yet, yet we still live and we still have to push on.
Music, words and friendships are the three things that have kept me sane over the years.
Music.
I honestly have no clue what it is that makes me love music as desperately as I do. Really, I do not understand music theory all that well and have incredibly sub par skills, yet I was able to bluff my way in marching band for six years and supposedly I have been in a real band for the past nine years...not sure what those count for but it does count for something in my mind.
I have to listen to music and when I do it sweeps me away. I attach memories, thoughts, hopes, daydreams, my writings and everything in life to songs. There are certain songs I listen to when I am sad, when I am happy, when I cry, when I hurt, when I feel like being silly, when I need encouragement and when I just have to break down and realize how little of life really matters.
Nothing I have ever experience can come close to the extreme rush of playing on stage. The drymouth and pre-show shakes you get before every show, no matter how small or big the audience. The incredible beating of your heart as you take the stage and you hear the drums erupt like a canon, the aggressive riffs fly from the guitar and then you know, you just KNOW you are going to screw up your cue...but by some miracle of God you manage to slide your fingers up the neck of the bass and start to crank out some sort of deep rumbling throb that is nothing short of a purpose giving beat.
Why do I love playing so much, being in a band?
It is a way of having identity and fellowship. I am a bass player at heart. I see no reason to play music unless you are working with others, I have ALWAYS have trouble practicing without having others around, partly because I am lazy and partly because of the need for the collaboration. The need to feel wanted and needed. It is nice, it is easy and the attention itself is so addicting.
Having a personality that is easily addicted and that thrives off of highs and lows...it is easy to loose yourself and forget who you are...happens every day of my life.
Every now and then I just have this overwhelming urge to play music again, to find a way back on a stage...but honestly I have no clue how healthy that is anyway.
Friendships and Relationships.
Two loaded words in my vocabulary.
I have always claimed that to me, my friends are what I consider to be my true family. Which is something I have always done out of a deep seated fear of family. I didn't have a perfect life growing up but, who actually did? If I had to endure the personal Hell's that some of my friends have been through I would have died, no question.
Why do some people seem to suffer more then others? Is it simply reaping what we sow? Maybe just the fact we are all screw ups anyway and how the dice fall is how they fall?
I like to think I am a fairly tolerant person but when I hear fellow Christians go on excessively about how we all deserve pain, we all deserve punishment for our sins...part of me agrees but at the same time, no one deserves the pain in their life. No matter how horrible, how evil or how screwed up they are...we all deserve love, we are supposed to be made in the imago dei, image of God, and that alone makes someone worthy of love.
Call me crazy but all of the Adolf Hitlers and leaders of genocide in the history of the world might have be a bit less crazy if they were hugged as a kid. Maybe if instead of being told how much garbage they were, it might have helped them to know that they could be accepted and loved for who they are and not who they should be. We can get into playing the what if game all day but it is still just a thought. People have to be taught to hate just as much as they have to be taught selfless and sacrificing love.
I go into that tangent for a slight purpose, I am starting to think to believe that so much of human behavior is a mixture of the chemicals exploding in our brains mixed with however we grew up.
Even if I wouldn't have grown up in a rather bad home life, I would have been a very odd and very neurotic human being. Factor in the fact I grew up in a situation where I have never seen a sane marriage or what it means to be an adult male...we sort of start to have a pattern that I believe has drastically shaped my life without knowing it.
Something that has always baffled me is how people tend to apologize to me when I say my parents got divorced when I was three and then my dad died when I was eight (or something along those lines). Don't get me wrong, it sucks but if I were to film out every last memory I have of my dad, what an odd sounding video, it would take up maybe fifteen minutes tops.
Why would people apologize? I mean, sure it is nicer then someone just laughing at me, but at the same time it is almost like they are not just apologizing for the bad circumstances but apologizing for me missing something deep and unexplainable.
I mean, it is almost like there is a REASON why we have two parents, a mother and a dad. Some sort of mystical thing that happens when you have two parents raising a kid, novel idea in todays world.
I'm starting to think that part of the reason why I tend to be so...odd, terrified of love, scared of even reasonable commitment...is because of not having a dad, not really seeing how the right kind of relationship should work.
I seem to recall reading in Anne Lamott's book "Traveling Mercies" where she mentions experiments with lab rats. That the way to ensure a rat becomes insane is to frequently and randomly change the variables in any experiments involving it. It eventually will get to a point where the rat is terrified and neurotic, it doesn't know if stepping on the switch will give it food or electrocute it and...as odd as this is I relate well to that story.
Every relationship in my life is like a switch in a rat cage. I step on it and (bearing in mind this is how my mind views things)either I get a rewarding and tasty piece of cheese (which would be an indulgent and easy stroke of my ego, some sort of affirmation of acceptance, a hug, affection or whatever) or I get a shock of the lifetime and it might be these horrible situations but...more often then naught, it is merely just dealing with hearing a valid criticism, someone loosing their temper, hearing about how disappointed with me someone is, etc.
The huge headache for me is that I am not sure how to separate the good from the bad. What I mean is that there gets to be a point where relationships become more then superficial and it terrifies me deeply. We're talking absolute fear among other things...and then it just gets to the point where I cannot tell the good from the bad. Things become really jumbled in my head and I start uncontrollably flinching when I'm touched or I jump at loud noises...weird things but it is a deep seated part of me.
So deep that I am not sure where any of it ends or begins. Could this be part of me that was made when I was born into a family with only superficial bonds?
What do you do with this? I have always felt excessively guilty about not loving my family more but to me the easiest thing is to just not care. It is easier to lock myself in my mind and segregate myself from my surroundings then it is to actually live with others. There are a lot of parts of me that no one has seen and that never want to be seen by another human.
The biggest crime anyone dating me has done is simply wanting to get to know me and unknowingly a point is reached where they hit these incredibly sensitive nerves and I responded by leaping about twelve feet in the air screaming about lemons and upon landing I would dive out the nearest window ranting about how the British were coming and Paul Revere needed to be warned.
I promise I'm not crazy.
I'm just special, in ways that only a mother and Jesus could truly appreciate.
Writing.
Why do i write?
The basic math I can figure is such:
A quarter therapeutic, a quarter for reasons of keeping my sanity, a quarter for self gratification, a quarter for having fun, a quarter because I do not know what else to do and a quarter way to express what I deem to be humor. I have always been bad at math.
There is escapism for sure but at the same time part of me just demands I write. Similar to the parts of me that demand I play music, demand I tell at least one person a year that Jesus loves them and that reminder that my one meal a day is just not healthy.
I want to write and so I do.
I want to write amazing prose, thrilling stories and use vocabulary words that even I am not sure of their meaning. So far the only of those I feel I somewhat accomplished with any real measure of absolute competency is the last one.
I would love to write songs, poems, thrilling stories but it seems like the only thing I can do that I won't delete or hide under my bed are these annoying essays about myself. Seriously, I feel like I am the worlds biggest narcissist (triple word score!) but I have no intention of stopping.
Writing this all out is therapeutic for sure, makes me feel special that I can string basic concepts of grammar together and well, also, even few months someone sends me an email about how me talking about 'such and such' was really neat and it inspired them or made them realize they were not alone.
That I admit is something that is cool and makes me want to keep writing. Sorta like how when I first read Donald Miller or Anne Lamott...you get introduced to these very likable, very witty and very human people that also happen to believe the crazy story about a first century carpenter Rabbi claiming to be God...and it makes sense/confuses them just as much as it makes sense/confuses me and even though they don't know me I feel a strong connection to their writings and their lives.
When you break things down to the bare essentials, few things in life are worth anything.
Very, very few.
One of these is supposed to be relationships but I'm not very comfortable with any of them. I really want to have them, I want to be closer to people, I want to love them and receive love...but...having the desire for normality just doesn't make it happen.
Having a relationship with God is like having this consummate relationship that sums up every other possible relationship a person could ever have with another human. Family, friendly, romantic and whatever else, it is this odd hodge podge of love that only makes sense when you stop to think that Yahweh is beyond our comprehension. Theology does a rather poor job at painting the picture of an infinite being when every thing said is impossibly insufficient and unable to really convey.
God is love.
A true and profound statement that is matched only in its utterly insufficient and near blasphemous summary.
God is.
Maybe a bit better but it doesn't reveal much.
The only reason we know about God is because he chooses to reveal himself through love, through life, through scripture and through his spirit. It doesn't make much sense but I doubt my cat ponders Quantum Physics all day either.
The point is...I write because I can't help it, I love God because I can't help it and that is okay. I don't understand all of it and if I said I did I would be a liar. Only a crazy person would claim to understand someone like Jesus. As C.S. Lewis rather wittily remarked in the Chronicles of Narnia "He isn't a tame lion".
I suppose that is a lesson I need to learn, acceptance.
Accepting I'm human and it is okay to actually be human.
Learning to accept love.
Learning I am lovable.
It is just a pity they didn't offer that as a major at the University of Mobile.
I won't even pretend I understand just what it is you are doing.
You know, it almost seems like there is some method behind this absolute insanity, beyond this pain and this hopelessness.
What does it take to get your attention? Prayer? Kind words? Screaming? Whoring my body and soul out to every last sin and desire I have? Breaking my last threads of sanity and dignity?
Do you want me to beg? To plead? To just acknowledge how much of a screw up I am?
I am not sure who I hate more right now, you or me.
I am in pain right now, do you even give a damn? Do you flinch when you look down from your throne and see me in pain? Does it concern you at all, in the very least that I hate life itself? That I curse and loathe the day I was born? That I would have been better to never have been born? That if you simply wanted me to suffer, could we not have forgo this incredibly disgusting life of dwelling in a body and you could have just thrown my soul into just whatever Hell is?
I ask but I know in advance I will not be getting any kind of answer that is actually tangible, something that could actually make me feel better.
How about a hug? How about just a fucking hug? Is it too much to ask? Is it just to damn much to ask of someone as infinite and holy as you? To just ask for you to please crawl down into this mud, into this disgusting and revolting life and just hold me? Is it too much?
I know you are supposed to love me and of all these untouchable promises but what about now? If there is only pain, then what the fuck is the point?
I hate you just as much as I love you. There is so much rage in my heart right now, so much uncontrolable hate in me.
I'm sick of cursing and using bad words, I'm tired of hurting others, I'm sick of being someone I am not. I hate my very being but I so desperately want to be accepted and love for just whoever I am.
Are my tears meaningless too?
Is anything of my existence worth anything?
If this is all my life is going to be, kill me now before I have to do it myself.
You know, it almost seems like there is some method behind this absolute insanity, beyond this pain and this hopelessness.
What does it take to get your attention? Prayer? Kind words? Screaming? Whoring my body and soul out to every last sin and desire I have? Breaking my last threads of sanity and dignity?
Do you want me to beg? To plead? To just acknowledge how much of a screw up I am?
I am not sure who I hate more right now, you or me.
I am in pain right now, do you even give a damn? Do you flinch when you look down from your throne and see me in pain? Does it concern you at all, in the very least that I hate life itself? That I curse and loathe the day I was born? That I would have been better to never have been born? That if you simply wanted me to suffer, could we not have forgo this incredibly disgusting life of dwelling in a body and you could have just thrown my soul into just whatever Hell is?
I ask but I know in advance I will not be getting any kind of answer that is actually tangible, something that could actually make me feel better.
How about a hug? How about just a fucking hug? Is it too much to ask? Is it just to damn much to ask of someone as infinite and holy as you? To just ask for you to please crawl down into this mud, into this disgusting and revolting life and just hold me? Is it too much?
I know you are supposed to love me and of all these untouchable promises but what about now? If there is only pain, then what the fuck is the point?
I hate you just as much as I love you. There is so much rage in my heart right now, so much uncontrolable hate in me.
I'm sick of cursing and using bad words, I'm tired of hurting others, I'm sick of being someone I am not. I hate my very being but I so desperately want to be accepted and love for just whoever I am.
Are my tears meaningless too?
Is anything of my existence worth anything?
If this is all my life is going to be, kill me now before I have to do it myself.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Nothing works to shut voices inside me up.
I'm tired of being so human that it hurts and I am full of physical, mental, spiritual and emotional pain.
I wish I wasn't so confused about who I am, who others are, so awkward about sexuality, so awkward about just being myself...and being around people and even knowing them.
I get so frustrated I want to scream.
I'm okay really...but it is so hard to just be ME. To exist as I am for my own sake, even with knowing a deeper love...I just long to be accepted and wanted for who I am.
I'm tired of being so human that it hurts and I am full of physical, mental, spiritual and emotional pain.
I wish I wasn't so confused about who I am, who others are, so awkward about sexuality, so awkward about just being myself...and being around people and even knowing them.
I get so frustrated I want to scream.
I'm okay really...but it is so hard to just be ME. To exist as I am for my own sake, even with knowing a deeper love...I just long to be accepted and wanted for who I am.
I have performed my good deeds for the next few decades so I think today will be a day off from my normal moaning and groaning. I'm going to go lay down after having a rather painful MRI and I am going to play Fallout 2 on my laptop.
I am going to enjoy the intricate plot and corny pop culture references. I am going to scratch behind the ears of a crying neurotic cat and hopefully when my best friend comes over we are going to play Halo and blast aliens apart until our collective fingers bleed.
Goodbye stress and hello virtual ultraviolence.
I am going to enjoy the intricate plot and corny pop culture references. I am going to scratch behind the ears of a crying neurotic cat and hopefully when my best friend comes over we are going to play Halo and blast aliens apart until our collective fingers bleed.
Goodbye stress and hello virtual ultraviolence.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Restructured
These walls,
hold their secrets.
These walls,
hold their breath as so they may hear.
Anemic, they are brittle.
This hollow shell acting as my guard.
I can't see beyond my own blindness,
these tattered and broken walls.
Yellowing paper and chipped paint
hug the floor cheerfully.
Aged like cheap wine.
hold their secrets.
These walls,
hold their breath as so they may hear.
Anemic, they are brittle.
This hollow shell acting as my guard.
I can't see beyond my own blindness,
these tattered and broken walls.
Yellowing paper and chipped paint
hug the floor cheerfully.
Aged like cheap wine.
Friday, September 5, 2008
Morning Day Dreams
I'm quite tired, physically and mentally.
I avoided certain drugs and...well I guess it isn't much of a surprise that I was not able to sleep.
Hmm...sensing a pattern here perhaps?
I'm confused.
The heart, mind and soul all seem to pull in their own respective directions.
I supposed my heart would be a base desire.
My mind is my intellect I have gathered through knowledge and experience.
My soul is the eternal essence that gives eternal purpose to the flesh body.
I'm guessing maybe that deep down they may not like each other very much...partly because they insist on being in such constant conflict...plus the other aspects of my being, being screwed up even more.
Example:
Loneliness.
I have been ill, a lot, lately and because of that my physical contact with humans has diminished greatly. It was hard enough before hand but the more I am alone the more I feel that I have every right to be by myself and to simply ignore others.
God knows how much of a prick I am to my family, simply for them committing the unforgivable sin of 'checking up on me'. It has gotten to the point where there isn't much conversation that I am involved in...but I think I even got my mom to just stop making basic inquires into my life...simply because of me being so short with her...I hate how much of a jerk I can be without even thinking about it.
In my defense, I just do not see how they could not notice the physical and mental anguish I am in, almost constantly at that. I mean, I can pick up small signs from people I do not even know...and considering there is at least a fragment of gene pool shared here...is there just no perception or no desire to perceive?
I just lack so many of the similar thoughts and ideas of others...how is this for a life plan...
Sleep.
Emotional stability.
Being healthy and sick free.
Sounds dreamy.
I avoided certain drugs and...well I guess it isn't much of a surprise that I was not able to sleep.
Hmm...sensing a pattern here perhaps?
I'm confused.
The heart, mind and soul all seem to pull in their own respective directions.
I supposed my heart would be a base desire.
My mind is my intellect I have gathered through knowledge and experience.
My soul is the eternal essence that gives eternal purpose to the flesh body.
I'm guessing maybe that deep down they may not like each other very much...partly because they insist on being in such constant conflict...plus the other aspects of my being, being screwed up even more.
Example:
Loneliness.
I have been ill, a lot, lately and because of that my physical contact with humans has diminished greatly. It was hard enough before hand but the more I am alone the more I feel that I have every right to be by myself and to simply ignore others.
God knows how much of a prick I am to my family, simply for them committing the unforgivable sin of 'checking up on me'. It has gotten to the point where there isn't much conversation that I am involved in...but I think I even got my mom to just stop making basic inquires into my life...simply because of me being so short with her...I hate how much of a jerk I can be without even thinking about it.
In my defense, I just do not see how they could not notice the physical and mental anguish I am in, almost constantly at that. I mean, I can pick up small signs from people I do not even know...and considering there is at least a fragment of gene pool shared here...is there just no perception or no desire to perceive?
I just lack so many of the similar thoughts and ideas of others...how is this for a life plan...
Sleep.
Emotional stability.
Being healthy and sick free.
Sounds dreamy.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
More then ever I think the person I loathe and fear the most is myself.
If I ever stopped hating and degrading myself enough to realize how beautiful of a creation I am...I might actually stop with the abuse, the rampant digestion of impulse...I might actually begin to realize I am not the God I make myself.
It is so pitifully ironic.
By hating myself and placing myself as being such an absolute worthless amount of scum,I am in fact setting myself up as the king of my world, the prince of my ego and the sole being of any importance in this world.
I am me and me is I, if that makes sense but at the end of the day I am an odd mixture of temporal organic matter and eternal ethereal soul. Nothing and everything about my actions will last and ring out through eternity and across this wasteland we commonly, yet incorrectly, think of as our home.
Nothing is more eternal then the prejudices we set up against ourselves and those around us, they exist eternally because of how invisible the thoughts and habits become. These habitual thoughts of disdain flow under the radar and consume the self until the personal ego becomes first and foremost, in and of itself in a sort of totality way.
If I ever stopped hating and degrading myself enough to realize how beautiful of a creation I am...I might actually stop with the abuse, the rampant digestion of impulse...I might actually begin to realize I am not the God I make myself.
It is so pitifully ironic.
By hating myself and placing myself as being such an absolute worthless amount of scum,I am in fact setting myself up as the king of my world, the prince of my ego and the sole being of any importance in this world.
I am me and me is I, if that makes sense but at the end of the day I am an odd mixture of temporal organic matter and eternal ethereal soul. Nothing and everything about my actions will last and ring out through eternity and across this wasteland we commonly, yet incorrectly, think of as our home.
Nothing is more eternal then the prejudices we set up against ourselves and those around us, they exist eternally because of how invisible the thoughts and habits become. These habitual thoughts of disdain flow under the radar and consume the self until the personal ego becomes first and foremost, in and of itself in a sort of totality way.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Outspoken Stains
The less I have seen the more I want.
The more I desire the more I need.
Is there no way any of this ends?
How many circles can be drawn in and of themselves?
I'm so sick of this seclusion,
this poor body that cannot do anything outside of lust.
I'm sick of this meandering corpse,
useful for nothing but sin.
I'm exhausted from trying.
I no longer care.
I do not give a damn if I die here tonight.
All I have ever needed is You and now I have nothing.
Every screaming whisper,
every broken gasp of air,
is it supposed to be for You
but I doubt you can find anything in nothing.
My love I am breaking further then I have ever broke.
The lies burn in my soul like fire.
My bones ache from the desires I have spurned on.
Every last breath, every scream.
Every trite attempt at life brings nothing,
nothing but me further from absolute truth.
I tired of this game.
I need sanity.
I need hope.
I need Your love in this wasteland of the soul.
I refuse to pretend I am alright when nothing is.
The writing is on the wall,
it's in blood.
The end is nigh
and the air is alive with my demise.
But I will hope in the eternal.
I will not die just yet.
Every last second of this life will be an explosion.
Rage, seething and boiling over in hate for this waste of life.
The culmination of a life brewed in hate.
Stewing and waiting to be unleashed,
my moment is at hand.
The more I desire the more I need.
Is there no way any of this ends?
How many circles can be drawn in and of themselves?
I'm so sick of this seclusion,
this poor body that cannot do anything outside of lust.
I'm sick of this meandering corpse,
useful for nothing but sin.
I'm exhausted from trying.
I no longer care.
I do not give a damn if I die here tonight.
All I have ever needed is You and now I have nothing.
Every screaming whisper,
every broken gasp of air,
is it supposed to be for You
but I doubt you can find anything in nothing.
My love I am breaking further then I have ever broke.
The lies burn in my soul like fire.
My bones ache from the desires I have spurned on.
Every last breath, every scream.
Every trite attempt at life brings nothing,
nothing but me further from absolute truth.
I tired of this game.
I need sanity.
I need hope.
I need Your love in this wasteland of the soul.
I refuse to pretend I am alright when nothing is.
The writing is on the wall,
it's in blood.
The end is nigh
and the air is alive with my demise.
But I will hope in the eternal.
I will not die just yet.
Every last second of this life will be an explosion.
Rage, seething and boiling over in hate for this waste of life.
The culmination of a life brewed in hate.
Stewing and waiting to be unleashed,
my moment is at hand.
Crooked Heart
The willing Stagnation of my own heart grieves me.
Much too soon I abandon hope.
Much too often I have given you nothing.
Spitting on blood given for free.
I'm addicted to myself,
a junkie shivering in the cold.
My next hit whatever my eyes see,
whatever my lust desires.
These damnable creatures mock me.
Leering eyes and rotten teeth,
their presence a stench from Hell.
Try as I might, nothing frees me.
I hear mocking cries,
"Save yourself"
Damnable, yet irresistible lies.
Accurate forgeries.
The only one forcing me to drink from this dirt
is myself.
The caretaker of my own lust fueled madness is I.
The captain of this ship.
The breaker of oaths.
The creator of this misery is myself and I alone.
My whore, this ever cheaper soul,
offered yet still to these fleeting fads.
Passing glitter and stardust that offer nothing.
It's enough to drive one mad.
Politicking and practicing false innuendos,
selling fools good they have no intention of buying.
This has all been about me.
Much too soon I abandon hope.
Much too often I have given you nothing.
Spitting on blood given for free.
I'm addicted to myself,
a junkie shivering in the cold.
My next hit whatever my eyes see,
whatever my lust desires.
These damnable creatures mock me.
Leering eyes and rotten teeth,
their presence a stench from Hell.
Try as I might, nothing frees me.
I hear mocking cries,
"Save yourself"
Damnable, yet irresistible lies.
Accurate forgeries.
The only one forcing me to drink from this dirt
is myself.
The caretaker of my own lust fueled madness is I.
The captain of this ship.
The breaker of oaths.
The creator of this misery is myself and I alone.
My whore, this ever cheaper soul,
offered yet still to these fleeting fads.
Passing glitter and stardust that offer nothing.
It's enough to drive one mad.
Politicking and practicing false innuendos,
selling fools good they have no intention of buying.
This has all been about me.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
On Church
So...I was born in and have lived in the South East U.S. my entire life, to be more specific Alabama, the belt of the metaphorical Bible Belt. Supposedly the only thing that is more sacred then Jesus down here is football and believe me does it ever show.
I grew up in the church and at an early age felt the Father calling me to serve in ministry somewhere and somehow...and so I did, just jumping at every possibility along the way. Somehow I was a fourteen year old kid leading Bible studies and helping lead a youth group...quite surreal looking back but flash forward about three years and you will find one of the more defining moments of my life.
By this time my closest group of friends are involved in church. We have a band that plays for church services and even Wednesday mornings at our public school. We play two times, sometimes three times a week and I'm able to preach about twice a week, sometimes more.
It was incredibly exciting and absolutely terrifying at the same time to see people respond. Some people would come to the Wednesday meetings just once or maybe stop by for a minute but you could just look in their eyes and see something connect with what you are playing, speaking about or praying about...it's not like people were falling over themselves in the aisle but something was going on...people were responding to the message.
Eventually the people stopped coming to the meeting in the auditorium and so we went to the people. We took acoustic guitars and a very modified version of street preaching. That was even more bizarre because we had about fifteen minutes most weeks but still people would stop and listen to our little Jesus freak show.
Looking back I'm not sure if we did more positive or negative but the focus of the message week after week was 'Jesus love you and you don't have to be perfect or religious. He just love you for yourself."...so i am praying and hoping we did more positive. Sometimes I think the church would do better to just shut up and give hugs...we don't wouldn't even have to wear tacky t-shirts either, just give our non conditional hugs...it's just a thought you know.
Eventually graduation came and exhilaration was as high as ever. College was coming in the fall but much had to be done, and by that I mean the summer mission trip. What I felt going into this trip was that to be my last youth group mission trip, and really it would come to be the catalyst that launched me into the next stage of my life and others... well in some cases completely destroying some peoples faith in God and still affirmed some people's faith in their little 'god(s)'.
I could spend hours on this one subject but I'll try to be as brief as possible. A good friend of ours essentially tried to confront a higher up in the church about what our friend perceived as sin and that backlashed into a huge firing and the killing of our youth group and band. The Tuesday after the mission trip I still remember calling all of the guys in the band and we were all confused and had not idea what the heck was going on.
The next day (Wednesday night) I gave the resignation letter of my friend to the youth group and resigned my position trying to encourage the youth to go somewhere else. It's funny because even though it's only been five years it feels like it has been a life time. I'll bump into some of the youth from time to time when I am in town...and it honestly it breaks my heart to see how some of them are doing. They haven't been able to find a place they can call home because of fears, doubt and the general mess of things.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that seeing the corruption in the church essentially killed this naivety I had about American Christendom. I use to think that stuff like CCM, Christian Book Stores, tacky concerts, street preaching, campaigning and the like were how the world was going to be changed...that Jesus was going to be so awesome and reach down and use these great ideas of ours to do this wonderful miracles but...it's so far from the truth that it is almost sad.
All these activities and programs are nothing more then hot air, static buzzing in the ear of God.
"GOD's Message: "Heaven's my throne, earth is my footstool. What sort of house could you build for me? What holiday spot reserve for me? I made all this! I own all this!" GOD's Decree. "But there is something I'm looking for: a person simple and plain, reverently responsive to what I say.
"Your acts of worship are acts of sin: Your sacrificial slaughter of the ox is no different from murdering the neighbor; Your offerings for worship, no different from dumping pig's blood on the altar; Your presentation of memorial gifts, no different from honoring a no-god idol. You choose self-serving worship, you delight in self-centered worship--disgusting! Well, I choose to expose your nonsense and let you realize your worst fears, Because when I invited you, you ignored me; when I spoke to you, you brushed me off. You did the very things I exposed as evil, you chose what I hate." "
-Isaiah 66:1-4
I think it's funny in a very sad way how the modern Church so perfectly parallels the nation of Israel from the Old Testament times. As a whole the American church is just as fat, just as spoiled, just as immature and just as apathetic. We get so caught up in how shiny and pretty our religion is and we forget the most important part...that there is a whole world we were meant to change...not by our stupid little Jesus pep rallies but by doing what Jesus did and getting in the mud and gutters of this world giving out love freely and pulling people out of the Hell they are living in...or something like that. It is not like this is some kind of exact science...that is where another one of my problems come in.
We go on and on about how we're the 'elect' and 'chosen ones' but forget that we are here for a reason. Israel was set up by God with the intention of being a light for the world...but instead they became drunk off their own religious awe and God destroyed their temple and nation over that.
Digressing...
Eventually I went to college, this story in and of itself could be another hundred pages but I'll try to be brief: "I was depressed and it sucked."
Christian education can bleed the gospel of life faster then anything else. This is coming from the guy who has a bachelor degree in Jesus and learned more from simply reading the Bible all the way through in high school, then in the majority of my theology classes, seriously. The most helpful college classes I had were my philosophy classes taught by the professor thrown out of the religion department for being to 'liberal'. At least in those I was taught to think critically and how to do a bit more then 'baaaah' like a good little sheep.
Christian education has good intentions but far to often gets caught up in PETTY and USELESS arguments that don't matter either in the short or long term. "Oh nos! Doctrinal purity! Orthodoxy or death! Systematic theology or the LIBERALS might kill us!"
Once again...those ideas are not bad by themselves but when they take precedence over 'knowing God and making God known', then something is amiss and believe me it is. Christians are not here to wage a culture war or bring heaven to earth. The basic gist if for us to learn how to love God and learn how to love each other through extreme trial and error. Bloody noses, fist fights, arguments and through the possible use of swear words (depending how you feel about those kind of things of course).
It's not pretty but it's authentic and real and my God the thought of actually being able to argue and treat other Christians as ACTUAL brothers and sisters makes me want to cry...actually fighting among one another but then learning how to live with one another...that's another way of looking at the gospel.
"In a word, what I'm saying is, Grow up. You're kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you."
-Jesus, Matthew 5:48
Let's see...covered being called to ministry, shameless self promotion for bands (Woo! Go Forged in the Fire and Forgotten Purpose, buy all of our non-existent albums!), covered college, what next? Ah...the present.
So then, what now?
I have no freaking clue.
Apparently I found out yesterday I'm starting back classes next week, if the school will be kind enough to accept the money.
I'm still dealing with not liking church or Christians. It's hard to be a minister and hate the church, true story I assure you.
To a certain degree I'm trying but not really trying. I'm applying broadly for certain churches to see if they will hire me and I've been trying to kick a struggling Bible study I've been hosting in the pants...but ultimately these things will not change the world.
To quote non other then the Protestant Pope, Bono himself:
"This morning I fell out of bed
when I woke up to what he had said.
Everything's crazy but I'm too lazy to lie.
And what am I to do
Just tell me what am I suppose to say
I can't change the world
But I can change the world in me
I Rejoice"
-U2, "Rejoice"
Crazy notion but I think it will work (the antidepressants help as well). I can't change the world, I'm far too weak willed to even change myself. What I can do however is determine to seek the Father while he can be found, to do the whole humbling myself so that He can be exalted in me thing. I hate how trite that sounds but it's the truth, believe me if there was a more obscure and confusing way to put it I would have.
Sometimes things are much more simple then we would care to admit, sometimes they are frighteningly simple.
Sometimes we just have to finally break down and let ourselves be loved.
"I'm no longer calling you servants because servants don't understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I've named you friends because I've let you in on everything I've heard from the Father. "You didn't choose me, remember; I chose you, and put you in the world to bear fruit, fruit that won't spoil. As fruit bearers, whatever you ask the Father in relation to me, he gives you.
"But remember the root command: Love one another. "
-Jesus, John 15-17
I grew up in the church and at an early age felt the Father calling me to serve in ministry somewhere and somehow...and so I did, just jumping at every possibility along the way. Somehow I was a fourteen year old kid leading Bible studies and helping lead a youth group...quite surreal looking back but flash forward about three years and you will find one of the more defining moments of my life.
By this time my closest group of friends are involved in church. We have a band that plays for church services and even Wednesday mornings at our public school. We play two times, sometimes three times a week and I'm able to preach about twice a week, sometimes more.
It was incredibly exciting and absolutely terrifying at the same time to see people respond. Some people would come to the Wednesday meetings just once or maybe stop by for a minute but you could just look in their eyes and see something connect with what you are playing, speaking about or praying about...it's not like people were falling over themselves in the aisle but something was going on...people were responding to the message.
Eventually the people stopped coming to the meeting in the auditorium and so we went to the people. We took acoustic guitars and a very modified version of street preaching. That was even more bizarre because we had about fifteen minutes most weeks but still people would stop and listen to our little Jesus freak show.
Looking back I'm not sure if we did more positive or negative but the focus of the message week after week was 'Jesus love you and you don't have to be perfect or religious. He just love you for yourself."...so i am praying and hoping we did more positive. Sometimes I think the church would do better to just shut up and give hugs...we don't wouldn't even have to wear tacky t-shirts either, just give our non conditional hugs...it's just a thought you know.
Eventually graduation came and exhilaration was as high as ever. College was coming in the fall but much had to be done, and by that I mean the summer mission trip. What I felt going into this trip was that to be my last youth group mission trip, and really it would come to be the catalyst that launched me into the next stage of my life and others... well in some cases completely destroying some peoples faith in God and still affirmed some people's faith in their little 'god(s)'.
I could spend hours on this one subject but I'll try to be as brief as possible. A good friend of ours essentially tried to confront a higher up in the church about what our friend perceived as sin and that backlashed into a huge firing and the killing of our youth group and band. The Tuesday after the mission trip I still remember calling all of the guys in the band and we were all confused and had not idea what the heck was going on.
The next day (Wednesday night) I gave the resignation letter of my friend to the youth group and resigned my position trying to encourage the youth to go somewhere else. It's funny because even though it's only been five years it feels like it has been a life time. I'll bump into some of the youth from time to time when I am in town...and it honestly it breaks my heart to see how some of them are doing. They haven't been able to find a place they can call home because of fears, doubt and the general mess of things.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that seeing the corruption in the church essentially killed this naivety I had about American Christendom. I use to think that stuff like CCM, Christian Book Stores, tacky concerts, street preaching, campaigning and the like were how the world was going to be changed...that Jesus was going to be so awesome and reach down and use these great ideas of ours to do this wonderful miracles but...it's so far from the truth that it is almost sad.
All these activities and programs are nothing more then hot air, static buzzing in the ear of God.
"GOD's Message: "Heaven's my throne, earth is my footstool. What sort of house could you build for me? What holiday spot reserve for me? I made all this! I own all this!" GOD's Decree. "But there is something I'm looking for: a person simple and plain, reverently responsive to what I say.
"Your acts of worship are acts of sin: Your sacrificial slaughter of the ox is no different from murdering the neighbor; Your offerings for worship, no different from dumping pig's blood on the altar; Your presentation of memorial gifts, no different from honoring a no-god idol. You choose self-serving worship, you delight in self-centered worship--disgusting! Well, I choose to expose your nonsense and let you realize your worst fears, Because when I invited you, you ignored me; when I spoke to you, you brushed me off. You did the very things I exposed as evil, you chose what I hate." "
-Isaiah 66:1-4
I think it's funny in a very sad way how the modern Church so perfectly parallels the nation of Israel from the Old Testament times. As a whole the American church is just as fat, just as spoiled, just as immature and just as apathetic. We get so caught up in how shiny and pretty our religion is and we forget the most important part...that there is a whole world we were meant to change...not by our stupid little Jesus pep rallies but by doing what Jesus did and getting in the mud and gutters of this world giving out love freely and pulling people out of the Hell they are living in...or something like that. It is not like this is some kind of exact science...that is where another one of my problems come in.
We go on and on about how we're the 'elect' and 'chosen ones' but forget that we are here for a reason. Israel was set up by God with the intention of being a light for the world...but instead they became drunk off their own religious awe and God destroyed their temple and nation over that.
Digressing...
Eventually I went to college, this story in and of itself could be another hundred pages but I'll try to be brief: "I was depressed and it sucked."
Christian education can bleed the gospel of life faster then anything else. This is coming from the guy who has a bachelor degree in Jesus and learned more from simply reading the Bible all the way through in high school, then in the majority of my theology classes, seriously. The most helpful college classes I had were my philosophy classes taught by the professor thrown out of the religion department for being to 'liberal'. At least in those I was taught to think critically and how to do a bit more then 'baaaah' like a good little sheep.
Christian education has good intentions but far to often gets caught up in PETTY and USELESS arguments that don't matter either in the short or long term. "Oh nos! Doctrinal purity! Orthodoxy or death! Systematic theology or the LIBERALS might kill us!"
Once again...those ideas are not bad by themselves but when they take precedence over 'knowing God and making God known', then something is amiss and believe me it is. Christians are not here to wage a culture war or bring heaven to earth. The basic gist if for us to learn how to love God and learn how to love each other through extreme trial and error. Bloody noses, fist fights, arguments and through the possible use of swear words (depending how you feel about those kind of things of course).
It's not pretty but it's authentic and real and my God the thought of actually being able to argue and treat other Christians as ACTUAL brothers and sisters makes me want to cry...actually fighting among one another but then learning how to live with one another...that's another way of looking at the gospel.
"In a word, what I'm saying is, Grow up. You're kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you."
-Jesus, Matthew 5:48
Let's see...covered being called to ministry, shameless self promotion for bands (Woo! Go Forged in the Fire and Forgotten Purpose, buy all of our non-existent albums!), covered college, what next? Ah...the present.
So then, what now?
I have no freaking clue.
Apparently I found out yesterday I'm starting back classes next week, if the school will be kind enough to accept the money.
I'm still dealing with not liking church or Christians. It's hard to be a minister and hate the church, true story I assure you.
To a certain degree I'm trying but not really trying. I'm applying broadly for certain churches to see if they will hire me and I've been trying to kick a struggling Bible study I've been hosting in the pants...but ultimately these things will not change the world.
To quote non other then the Protestant Pope, Bono himself:
"This morning I fell out of bed
when I woke up to what he had said.
Everything's crazy but I'm too lazy to lie.
And what am I to do
Just tell me what am I suppose to say
I can't change the world
But I can change the world in me
I Rejoice"
-U2, "Rejoice"
Crazy notion but I think it will work (the antidepressants help as well). I can't change the world, I'm far too weak willed to even change myself. What I can do however is determine to seek the Father while he can be found, to do the whole humbling myself so that He can be exalted in me thing. I hate how trite that sounds but it's the truth, believe me if there was a more obscure and confusing way to put it I would have.
Sometimes things are much more simple then we would care to admit, sometimes they are frighteningly simple.
Sometimes we just have to finally break down and let ourselves be loved.
"I'm no longer calling you servants because servants don't understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I've named you friends because I've let you in on everything I've heard from the Father. "You didn't choose me, remember; I chose you, and put you in the world to bear fruit, fruit that won't spoil. As fruit bearers, whatever you ask the Father in relation to me, he gives you.
"But remember the root command: Love one another. "
-Jesus, John 15-17
Monday, September 1, 2008
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Seeing If Believing
Just why am I here?
This pain inside never ceases.
I feel cold stares of blank confusion
as I wander from room to room,
full of wonder.
Rain falls outside your windows.
But I just feel the pain as it increases,
the intensity inside sears.
I ask politely for a change
but it never happens.
I ask for a chance
and it never ceases to never be.
It is the feeling of walking in on yourself naked.
This starkness you cannot hide.
Just wipe away the tears you cried,
it's time to be a big boy now.
Time to be a man.
It doesn't matter that you are about to crack,
that you have broken you back,
what matters is you push back.
I am told I was never known by most.
There is a shame of knowing someone desperate.
Desperate for love, for change and for attention.
Those most often given to it know of what I speak,
just be looking out the window you can see.
You see the lies in the mirror and love the window,
just so you can see what you can see and hate.
It is a drunken toxin you love to embrace.
I cannot hope to separate the two,
where you end and I begin.
I look at me and hate what I see
because what I see is me within me.
Withering, cracking and unable to hold up.
I want to go home.
Where the sun never dies.
Where every tear is wiped,
no matter the eye that cried.
I want to go home,
to see the beginning I never knew
and to be held before I fully die.
The waves crash outside your window,
sending cascades across your perfect lies.
Towers of sand torn down by the times.
A look into your shallow soul
revealing just me.
Named as myself,
naked as my sin.
I am the one I always were.
I am the me you will never see.
This pain inside never ceases.
I feel cold stares of blank confusion
as I wander from room to room,
full of wonder.
Rain falls outside your windows.
But I just feel the pain as it increases,
the intensity inside sears.
I ask politely for a change
but it never happens.
I ask for a chance
and it never ceases to never be.
It is the feeling of walking in on yourself naked.
This starkness you cannot hide.
Just wipe away the tears you cried,
it's time to be a big boy now.
Time to be a man.
It doesn't matter that you are about to crack,
that you have broken you back,
what matters is you push back.
I am told I was never known by most.
There is a shame of knowing someone desperate.
Desperate for love, for change and for attention.
Those most often given to it know of what I speak,
just be looking out the window you can see.
You see the lies in the mirror and love the window,
just so you can see what you can see and hate.
It is a drunken toxin you love to embrace.
I cannot hope to separate the two,
where you end and I begin.
I look at me and hate what I see
because what I see is me within me.
Withering, cracking and unable to hold up.
I want to go home.
Where the sun never dies.
Where every tear is wiped,
no matter the eye that cried.
I want to go home,
to see the beginning I never knew
and to be held before I fully die.
The waves crash outside your window,
sending cascades across your perfect lies.
Towers of sand torn down by the times.
A look into your shallow soul
revealing just me.
Named as myself,
naked as my sin.
I am the one I always were.
I am the me you will never see.
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