This Is It

Mind barely able to function.
Throat burns.
Mind so clouded.
I just do not understand
the how and.

There is very few answers offered
so in a way it doesn't matter how you come
or really even why.
None good enough,
not even for me.

I'm trying to smile despite the sadness.
Life is better than I give it credit for...but...sometimes it is hard.

Touch of a Muse

The burning cancer in me
speaks in verse
demanding attention
the breaking of my spirit
and bending of my knees.
I can't remmeber the last time I saw Your face,
the last time I felt Your touch,
the last moment I didn't doubt everything.

If pain is the only thing left in creation
than let this end.
End all this pain and make this all new.
If there is hope to own
then dear God bring us back to life again.

My heart is such a black, broken and fetid thing.
I never knew pain felt so much like pain
and that faith would feel like fire in my bones
burning with no relief.
I never knew the journey we started together
would one day lead us here,
to this point of irreducible complexity
of both our hearts and minds interlocking
and being graced by the lips and breath of an angel.

"Lead Us Home" - Demon Hunter

One more day
This time I’ll bite the bullet
Let me stay
And set this life ablaze

Give myself to compromise
And let the hammer fall
From blackened eyes to broken ties
I’ve bled to know them all
Driven to the brink of death
I heed deceptions call
Through bitter tears, forgotten years
I’ve come to sever all

Lead us home
Lead us home
Our tired hearts are failing now, from the inside out
Lead us home

One more time
This day I kill the witness
Take back what’s mine
And give disgrace a name

Give myself to compromise
And let the hammer fall
From blackened eyes to broken ties
I’ve bled to know them all
Driven to the brink of death
I heed deceptions call
Through bitter tears, forgotten years
I’ve come to sever all

Lead us home
Lead us home
Our tired hearts are failing now, from the inside out
Lead us home

Blessed hands will tear me off
And break me at the wrist
Drag me back to solid ground
And slay the fate I kiss

Lead us home
Lead us home
Our tired hearts are failing now, from the inside out
Lead us home

Dark in the Day

More pain, more death.
What is next?
Will this cycle every end?
How much more pain will we have to endure
while we wait for your return?
How much is truth?
How much is fable?
What are the lies we tell ourselves,
just so we can sleep at night?

How can I ever love these people
when I hate myself?
How will I ever lead anyone
when I am so unsure myself?
When will your light burn
and love manifest itself?

How many more tears will be shed,
who will be the next to leave?
How can we know what is next?
Does your love endure beyond the grave?

Will you be there on that final day
to hold my hand
and keep me close when I at last fade?

Home seems like an impossible concept.
This impossible fable of hope.
That love can endure this world,
that your peace and grace are something more.
What is truth?

Questions floating in a void of doubt
come back to my side even though
I am the one who ran from you
and embrace myself.
Lead me home to your side
where eternity stretches
past the breadth of my failure
and the width of the chasm of sin
which separated us for all these years.

Take me,
mold me,
break me,
love me
and never leave me
like I left You.

Your love is new forever,
every day renewed
and more beautiful than before.
Amen and amen.

"Ultra Violet (Light My Way)" - U2

Ecclesiastes 7

1 A good reputation is better than a fat bank account. Your death date tells more than your birth date.

2 You learn more at a funeral than at a feast—
After all, that's where we'll end up. We might discover
something from it.

3 Crying is better than laughing.
It blotches the face but it scours the heart.

4 Sages invest themselves in hurt and grieving.
Fools waste their lives in fun and games.

5 You'll get more from the rebuke of a sage
Than from the song and dance of fools.

6 The giggles of fools are like the crackling of twigs
Under the cooking pot. And like smoke.

7 Brutality stupefies even the wise
And destroys the strongest heart.

8 Endings are better than beginnings.
Sticking to it is better than standing out.

9 Don't be quick to fly off the handle.
Anger boomerangs. You can spot a fool by the lumps on his head.

10 Don't always be asking, "Where are the good old days?"
Wise folks don't ask questions like that.

11-12 Wisdom is better when it's paired with money,
Especially if you get both while you're still living.
Double protection: wisdom and wealth!
Plus this bonus: Wisdom energizes its owner.

13 Take a good look at God's work.
Who could simplify and reduce Creation's curves and angles
To a plain straight line?

14 On a good day, enjoy yourself;
On a bad day, examine your conscience.
God arranges for both kinds of days
So that we won't take anything for granted.

15-17 I've seen it all in my brief and pointless life—here a good person cut down in the middle of doing good, there a bad person living a long life of sheer evil. So don't knock yourself out being good, and don't go overboard being wise. Believe me, you won't get anything out of it. But don't press your luck by being bad, either. And don't be reckless. Why die needlessly?

18 It's best to stay in touch with both sides of an issue. A person who fears God deals responsibly with all of reality, not just a piece of it.

19 Wisdom puts more strength in one wise person
Than ten strong men give to a city.

20 There's not one totally good person on earth,
Not one who is truly pure and sinless.
21-22 Don't eavesdrop on the conversation of others.
What if the gossip's about you and you'd rather not hear it?
You've done that a few times, haven't you—said things
Behind someone's back you wouldn't say to his face?

23-25 I tested everything in my search for wisdom. I set out to be wise, but it was beyond me, far beyond me, and deep—oh so deep! Does anyone ever find it? I concentrated with all my might, studying and exploring and seeking wisdom—the meaning of life. I also wanted to identify evil and stupidity, foolishness and craziness.

26-29 One discovery: A woman can be a bitter pill to swallow, full of seductive scheming and grasping. The lucky escape her; the undiscerning get caught. At least this is my experience—what I, the Quester, have pieced together as I've tried to make sense of life. But the wisdom I've looked for I haven't found. I didn't find one man or woman in a thousand worth my while. Yet I did spot one ray of light in this murk: God made men and women true and upright; we're the ones who've made a mess of things.

Survived church, hurting but alive.

Sunday Bloody Sunday

These days I do not preach very often.

I have a degree in pastoral ministries from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary as well as a bachelor of Arts in Christian Studies with an emphasis in pastoral ministries (as well as a bachelor of Arts in Humanities but that is beside the point at this point).

It has been a couple of years since I've taught on a regular basis, a few years since I've done anything I would qualify as being "preaching".

Ever since I was about fourteen I started on a path towards doing 'ministry', 'preaching' whatever all that means. Honestly I'm not sure myself and I've spent a lot of time thinking about those terms and trying to try and come to some real conclusion.

About the time I graduated from high school and started college some events transpired that gave me a foul taste in my mouth concerning church and ministry. Since that time I've had trouble going to church and interacting with Christians. To a large degree I started to develop a distrust and at times a self righteous disgust of Christians.

I got tired of the cliches, tired of the mind games, tired of the politics, tired of the lame jokes and the stupid suits and ties. I got burned out and bitter. I would hear expressions like "God bless you" "God Bless the USA", "Jesus loves you" and see the thousands and at times millions of dollars poured into buildings and programs to entertain the people in church while at the time ignoring those living in poverty just a few miles down the road.

I have and still see Jesus being used as a political tool, some sort of rally cry to gather protesters...as if using Jesus in your slogans would somehow make your cause 'righteous' and 'good'.

If I was to be perfectly honest I think I would be branded both crazed and a heretic. I don't feel I'm that crazy or heretical just that Jesus doesn't divide people based on ethnicity, social class, skin color, religion or anything else people have invented just so they can look down on others. I have serious doubt that Jesus supports the Republican, the Democrats or the Green party...or any political body for that matter. Politicians are just like the rest of us and only care about their immediate concerns.

I could go on about this but for those interested in doing a little background reading about this check out 1 Samuel 8-10

I could go on with this but I'm not going to, that isn't the exact point of this letter, sermon or whatever you want to call it. I don't know what it is exactly. I just know I've seen a lot of broken lives, heard so many stories and just know that this world is getting worse.

Being sick with a disease that keeps me constantly in pain and nauseated has been somewhat sobering. Around the fall of 2007 I was looking at doing a masters of divinity in Birmingham. Now I'm looking at doing a masters of divinity out in San Fransisco. I'm still not exactly sure why I'm doing this other then the fact I feel that I'm being told to do so.

I guess all this comes back to this wild and crazed revolutionary and controversial guy called Jesus. Well, to just say he is a man would miss the point. I mean, the backbone of my education for the better part of six years has been that Jesus is more than a man, that even though he lived and died around two thousand years ago, he is actually alive and is both God and man and somehow he is my best friend and savior.

I never said this was going to sound sane but even though I openly question how this is possible every time I think about it...I can't help but laugh. Like love, it is something that chooses you and you have to give back...or something. I mean, this gets to be really complicated really fast. As much as I try to appreciate the work of those who do apologetics...a lot of time is wasted on research that doesn't amount to much.

From my experience people dying, those who are unemployed, the drug junkie shaking while wanting his next fix...you could pile up all the archeological evidence in the world before them and they could care less. It's not that I'm trying to cause a lot of trouble or step on toes but unless the church is grounded in the dirt and grime of the world, where is she?

I know people like to reduce Jesus to being some sort of holy guy that said 'Hey, why don't we try loving people?' and that sort of is true but at the same time misses the whole point.

For anyone who has bothered to actually read the Bible Jesus was not a lovey hippie figure as much as he was a loudly spoken rabbi who scared religious and political figures so much that they killed him. And despite the minor setback of death that couldn't stop Him.

Don't ask me how it works but it does. There are many trite and pointless analogies and comparisons that real preachers try to use but they all, to be frank, suck. How do you begin to compare the infinite love of an incomprehensibly omniscient and omnipresent being to the breeze blowing, or of human love?

Seriously.

If we're talking about Jesus, this insane mixture of deity and human being then we are talking about something we CANNOT comprehend with empirical science. People have wasted their entire lives arguing and killing one another over who has a better definition of Jesus.

That is partly what this is about, at least I think it is.

I'm sick of the fighting.

Every time I turn on the news or check the BBC's website my stomach turns. I feel nauseated. How many mass shootings have we had in the past weeks? Months? Years? How many times do we hear of someone screaming "Allahu Ackbar!" (Glory to God, for more information see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takbir) before detonating a bomb and killing dozens of people.

'Glory to God'?

Seriously.

Or how about the crusades? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusade
Did you read that part in the Bible where Jesus said "Oh, by the way guys, this religion called Islam is going to pop up around the seventh century and eventually will take over Jerusalem. I want you guys to know this ahead of time so you can gather a large group of Anglo Saxons claiming divine right and go kill the Muslims. Rape, pillage, you know the war thing."

What about something a bit more home grown, the whole "Manifest Destiny" that resulted in the genocide of the Native Americans?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_Destiny
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_Knee_Massacre

Or The Troubles in Northern Ireland that have been going on for decades? Militant Catholics and Protestants killing one another.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles

Wait, did someone just say Protestants versus Catholics?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years%27_War



I could go on because there is more...but I'm tired of this. As George Santayana said "Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

There has been so much wholesale slaughter in the name of Jesus, so many people rejected and told they are scum by the established church, so many broken promises, so many lies...and at the end of the day I'm no better than those who came before me.

I'm just another broken soul that is afraid and is unsure of life. Half the time I feel afraid to do anything and half the time I feel this indescribable peace and presence that scares me as much as it brings peace.

Love given to me from a finite being merely scares me, love from One who is incomprehensible terrifies me. It's bad enough to look up at the sky when its dark and see the vast ocean of stars...and to think there is One who effortlessly spoke all of this into being?

I mean, really, where does that leave us?

The more I pray, the more I read, the more I study...the bigger the gap seems. There are a good many of different things I believe but most of it can be summed up rather easily:

"One of the religion scholars came up. Hearing the lively exchanges of question and answer and seeing how sharp Jesus was in his answers, he put in his question: "Which is most important of all the commandments?"

Jesus said, "The first in importance is, 'Listen, Israel: The Lord your God is one; so love the Lord God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence and energy.' And here is the second: 'Love others as well as you love yourself.' There is no other commandment that ranks with these.""
-Mark 12:28-30

One of my many problems with talking about this kind of thing is knowing where to begin and end things. There is so much to say and so much that is running around in my mind at any give point in the day. But the only thing that still catches my breath still, that makes my heart beat so erratically...is this thought of love.

Genuine love. Not the broken and limited love of people but the αγάπη, the love expressed only by the divine (for some more thoughts on this see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agape

It is this love that I'm chiefly concerned with and it is the lack of reciprocation among Christians that have resulted in some of the most horrific tragedies imaginable.

It is this love that is incredibly complex and simple, both mundane at times and breath taking as well.

It was this love that was expressed when Jesus died on the cross, acting as a passover Lamb for all sin. I know a lot of preachers spend time focusing on how horrible humans are, how dirty we are and how much we need help because none of us can save ourselves. Just a glance at the news headlines and honestly if there is no hope beyond this physical world there is no need to worry about finding Hell because it is already here.

And I really do not feel comfortable talking about this kind of thing. I'm sure to some people it seems like I'm pointing the finger and saying "Look how bad they are and look how awesome I am! Woo! Go team Jesus!" but what I'm trying to say is that the church, including me, has been contributing to the problem by missing the entire point off the Gospel...which is love.

It doesn't matter how you dress, what words you use, what rituals you partake in, what songs you sing or scream, it doesn't matter the degree of love you felt growing up. The past is the past and the offer for a life freed from addiction of self is a few breaths away.

I wish there were some kind of magic words I could speak, some sort of special phrase I could utter and it would make everything better. But the reality of the situation is that things are going to continue to get worse until someone does something.

The task is huge and the potential for failure has never been greater...but for those who have been touched by this incomprehensible love...what are we waiting for? What am I waiting for?


Music to me is a life force that helps push me and keep me going. Positive reinforcement and an outlet for the prayers my soul can only scream in the dark of the night.

A song that has captured this feeling...this disappointment...this heartache of seeing Christianity hijacked and used and manipulated for hate can be found in the U2 song "Sunday Bloody Sunday".

The song itself paints a picture that is a juxtaposition of the massacre in Northern Ireland as Bloody Sunday to the resurrection of Christ on Sunday.

I know I hear a lot of jokes from friends about my love of U2 but this particular performance of this song captures this feeling...this...place where my mind has been traveling to.

How long? How much longer will we be singing this song? How long until the church, until I actually stand up for what is right?

When Jesus mentions loving your enemies, he means loving them as you would your friends. It mean destroying our prejudices about everyone and throwing down our weapons. The early church followed to their deaths.

There is a power in complete surrender and unclenching your fist. Saying no to revenge, saying no to the cancerous hate and fear that threaten to consume our lives. If someone actually wants to change the world they have to love people as Jesus did and being willing to pay for it, just like He did.

I'm so sick of this, not just the hypocrisy in televangelist, not only the wolves posing as sheep to steal money, not just the faux Christian 'leaders' calling for political assassinations and for Christians to 'take back their country'; I'm sick of myself. I'm sick of being so caught up in my problems that I ignore the world around me. For those of us with enough audacity to call ourselves Christians (as it were, ones like Christ, 1 Peter 4:12-19) we have a lot to answer for...a lot to make amends for.

Sometimes the best thing we can do is shut our mouths long enough to hear others speak and the best response we can give is a hug. Words cannot hope to describe and define the beautiful horror that seizes a person when they realize they are loved by Christ. The best we can hope to do is to show that love in how we live, how we treat others and most importantly loving our enemies even if it means our death. That will show a world that Christ is alive and burning inside us.



"Here's another old saying that deserves a second look: 'Eye for eye, tooth for tooth.' Is that going to get us anywhere? Here's what I propose: 'Don't hit back at all.' If someone strikes you, stand there and take it. If someone drags you into court and sues for the shirt off your back, giftwrap your best coat and make a present of it. And if someone takes unfair advantage of you, use the occasion to practice the servant life. No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously.

"You're familiar with the old written law, 'Love your friend,' and its unwritten companion, 'Hate your enemy.' I'm challenging that. I'm telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer, for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. He gives his best—the sun to warm and the rain to nourish—to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty. If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that. If you simply say hello to those who greet you, do you expect a medal? Any run-of-the-mill sinner does that.

"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."
-Matthew 5:38-48

It is safe say I do miss a certain muse.

"The Beginning" - Showbread

I used to dream that I could fly
Just above the whispered clouds, beneath the somber sky
I had a dream I was alive
I dreamt that love would never die, goodbye
Dreams were cheap and hope was easy (so light)
The forgeries of life deceiving (so bright)
And as I glided to the ground (so long)
Calcified, the concrete weighed me down (cruel world)

Your wings are holding up the sky
Dear God, I had dreamt that I could fly

Alkaline the burning frost, has blistered deep beneath my bones
And winter spat its hatred, cold and coiled, black and deep
As it called me ever further, where evil burns and never sleeps
I once had prayers that found no words, fragile things I've never spoken
Through my lips passed eulogies for all the oaths that I have broken
And still the ghost of hope was haunting, through the dark to save the living
And still beneath it all I dreamt that God could be forgiving

Your wings are holding up the sky
Dear God, I dreamt that I could fly

When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of glory died
My richest gain I count but loss
And pour contempt on all my pride

I am the worst of all things here
My crooked, black, and lying heart still spits its bitter fear
And each and every sparrow
They flutter to the ground before they die
So please God don't forget me

''I have been with you all along, you have not noticed me.'
Nervosa now felt more ashamed than ever before.
'Why would you still care enough to save me
even after seeing the horrible things I have done?
Why do you remain here even now?' She asked, sobbing.
'Because, here is where you are,' the Lamb said softly,
'And I long to be with you.''

See from His head, His hands, His feet
Sorrow and love flow mingled down
Did e'er such love and sorrow meet
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?
To Christ, who won for sinners' grace
By bitter grief and anguish sore
Be praise from all the ransomed race
Forever and forevermore

Somewhere Between Love and Here

Fallen out of sight of You
I start to loose myself.
Your voice is so faint,
but I can remember,
remember those first words.
The words bringing the chaos to calm,
the words that brought order
to an endless void.
With a simple word you speak
and creation kneels before thee.
You spoke and by your breath
brought this soul and body together.

I cannot remember much
but I have felt your arms
and your tears matching mine.
The burdens around me
that threaten to capsize me
and pull me under
are never a surprise to You.

Somewhere a child is dying
cold, alone and hungry.
Somewhere an innocent
is dying alone
blood pooled around
forsake by all
but You.

A blood smeared cross is the profit of my gains.
I killed the maker of creation
Arson of the soul burning with no notion
forgetting the price of life and the pain.
Every last word I can whisper
speaks as an eternal scream
blood red spilling as ink on paper
Nightmares replace my dreams
as I long for You again.
To have my savior be mine,
the One whose love is not mere vapor
burning in the sun.

But the One whose love burns the sky
gentle as a lamb
more fearsome than the darkness
There is no aptness
no words
no ritual
no saving grace
except for what You have given.

This body will continue to fail
and my words ring about in this room empty,
curses lifted in vain
against myself
against You
and whoever else who tries to help.
I lack words to speak
as I gasp for air
to weak now to scream.
I whisper in the dark,
I wonder where you are.
I can't scream
and my throat aches from the sores
of a lifetime spent lost
but here You are.

The smells of death and decay
and the rotting piles of trash around me.

The dark smiles at me,
smirks I recognize as my own.
Whispers of finality
that is my own voice.
I am but not alone.
More then this pain
and finality is You.

Jesus, bless me so I can move.
My tongue is full of venom
and has crafted so much deceit.
The blood continues to flow out
and I beg for Your touch once more.
The medication blocks the pain
but the disease of sin still festers.
Kiss the sparrow and come back to my side.
You see the fields of flowers
but I only see me.
There is a world diseased and dying
but here I am.

Please find me here.
Forget me not.
Forgive me for my doubt
and the gods that are my pain.

I don't understand.
My mind become more clouded
pain more intense.
I don't want to be saved,
I want to be yours.
I speak contradiction
and have my life engraved in stone.

It seems like the view of a sea.
White sands and eternal oceans.
My weakness and hate evident.

The tears I shed are for myself.
I've never remembered another
or cared to help give my abundance.
It is self.
No why or how.
No rhyme or reason.
Just this shattered heart
feeling lungs collapse.
Feeling the pain in my stomach build
for no reason.

Can we go alone,
just You and I?
Could You carry me to distant shores
although You have already died?
Can you carry the weight of my sins
and the weight of this dead body?
Can you carry me through eternity
and wipe away every tear?
Will you please save me,
Savior?
Redeemer?

Your cross is horrifying in its beauty.
Undying love at the price of a life.
My pride, my lust and my ambition
the hammers that drove nails
and here I lay on this mountain
covered in the dirt of this worlds triteness.
I feel the cold piercing my bones.
The fever of endless dreams
while waiting on this mountain side.
I wait while my faith breathes its last
and my body longs to give in with one last sigh
so please do not forget me Father.
Do not leave me here
rotting in my shame.

Ιησού Χριστού

Χριστέ μου, σωτήρας, με σώσεις.
Για τον λόγο σας, την ομορφιά σας.
Αποθήκευση μου.
Καθαρίζονται με το αίμα μου,
πλύνετε την ψυχή μου καθαρή.
Πατέρα, πατέρα μου.
Αγάπη μου με τον τρόπο που μόνο εσείς μπορείτε.
Είμαι κλάμα για την αγάπη σας
και μόνο εσείς μπορείτε να με σώσεις.
Θα ξεχάσουμε αυτές τις λέξεις
αλλά ποτέ δεν μου επιτρέπει να ξεχνάμε
η αγάπη σου για μένα.
Ιησού Χριστού,
σώσεις.

I have about reached my threshold of dealing with humanity.

It's not enough that I am sick and now in more pain...I have to deal with people being upset with me...because of circumstances out of control.

I hate this place.

I hate this world.

The end could never come quick enough.

"Every New Day" - Five Iron Frenzy

When I was young, the smallest trick of light,
Could catch my eye,
Then life was new and every new day,
I thought that I could fly.
I believed in what I hoped for,
And I hoped for things unseen,
I had wings and dreams could soar,
I just don't feel like flying anymore.
When the stars threw down their spears,
Watered Heaven with their tears,
Before words were spoken,
Before eternity.

Dear Father, I need you,
Your strength my heart to mend.
I want to fly higher,
Every new day again.

When I was small, the furthest I could reach,
Was not so high,
Then I thought the world was so much smaller,
Feeling that I could fly.
Through distant deeps and skies,
Behind infinity,
Below the face of Heaven,
He stoops to create me.

Dear Father, I need you,
Your strength my heart to mend.
I want to fly higher,
Every new day again.

Man versus himself.
Man versus machine.
Man versus the world.
Mankind versus me.
The struggles go on,
The wisdom I lack,
The burdens keep piling
Up on my back.
So hard to breathe,
To take the next step.
The mountain is high,
I wait in the depths.
Yearning for grace,
And hoping for peace.
Dear God...
Increase.

Healing hands of God have mercy on our unclean souls once again.
Jesus Christ, light of the world burning bright within our hearts forever.
Freedom means love without condition,
without a beginning or an end.
Here's my heart, let it be forever Yours,
Only You can make every new day seem so new.

So much pain.
Cannot think.
God, where are you?

Back home.
Tests showed nothing.
Now in more pain.
*sigh*

Not sure where you are at this point but thanks...that was nice.

I'm off for now.

Could be better, could be worse.

Just have to wait and see which it will be.

A Few Prayers For The Night

Hmm...as always...good come back.

I do wish I could quit.

For good.

Sing For Tomorrow Burns

With every revolving relentless cycle
this stagnation is quickened.
Every breath brings another pain
another in a lengthy list of offenses.
Actuality ceases to bring meaning
in this cancer and never ending sickness,
with every broken heart harkened
to return to life abandoning sleep.

Poisoned veins empty onto ground
glisten in half truths
fooling only the self,
breathing life into the dumbfound.
Awaken at long lost from slumber
on this final day.

All of our meaning becomes crystallized
when all will be seen,
the sky rolled up like a curtain
and the defective exposed in their flaws
and the casting down of the demonized.

Speaking their madness no more
they will be bound eternally
to torment no more
and those freed by the shed blood
of the One
will be made whole,
freed from this final disease.
The cancer of soul.

No more heartbreak.
No more sin.
No more casting about within.
No more trite metaphor.
No more false pretension.
Only one way of salvation.

Only freedom.

Better Words Needed

You certainly know how to make one smile,
thanks a million for everything
and you help make it all worthwhile.

Even deeply within this dark circle
never knowing what is next
always knowing there is an angel
on my side aiding the vexed.

Words never offer substance
sincere enough to give life
to all these fleeting thoughts
about your aide in fighting this trite
and excuse filled life.

I am ashamed of myself because somehow I forgot how amazing Stryper is.

Random Comedic Sketches on Warfare

Numerous Tangets...

I keep having these really vivid dreams...I just woke up again...it was me being back at school...it's hard to phrase everything because it is really so silly...and I don't like looking utterly ridiculous...even on here...I can only be myself to so much of a degree before I start feeling so...exo-outside of this skin and body...and the dream was vivid enough and incorporated a few dozen people I knew from back Mobile and high school.

I'm not sure dreams mean anything other then the fact they are random neurological impulses firing through the brain...and trying to make sense of a human is impossible...as impossible as track the quantum mechanics that govern the sub atomic particles and their little dances through the infinite void of which matter consists of.

Well make sense of them in the sense that I'm tired of being in this isolation, this exile of such.

The more time a person spends outside of REAL community the more dehumanized they become...the less they are capable of their true purpose and of becoming who they are. Whether we like it or not we need other people to realize who we are...oddity that it is.

Distant Yet Close, Far Away But Near

Being lost in this labyrinth of my mind for so long...I've ignored so many well meaning friends, people who have done more then their fair share of trying to help me...all the while I have wondered lost and bitter in my own world. This medicated haze broken only by a few rays of sunlight that burn so much.

It is almost like trying to learn to be human again.

I've forgotten what compassion looks like, that love is not just a ludicrous human emotion conjured by futile attempts to give meaning to an otherwise meaningless life and that hope, dear God hope is not just real but it is this fire that burns in my heart...and that You, only You can make my heart beat twice as fast whenever you draw near.

I can't pretend to have a special clarity or that somehow I have found something no one else has...just that I run myself into the ground every day and lay here in shambles and even thought I curse the day as being night...there is more hope and life than I can scarcely hope to believe in.

When will this end?

Friday maybe. It could easily go either way, I may die today or Friday or in another hospital in twenty years. God knows I don't know at all and do not need to know.

I've stumbled through life and have been dragged along for most of it and here I am at another threshold. It feels like the day I woke up in Mobile and I had graduation in a few hours. John was kind enough to stay with me, drive me around so I could find some dress shoes that were overpriced and then drop off at the civic center for graduation.

Some friends are just so good you don't deserve them, especially when you tend to act as a pompus know it all that is laughing at the joke that the rest of the world hasn't gotten yet.

And yet, there is still love. It's amazing how clarity makes everything more beautiful and painful at the same time...sort of like finally getting to breath again after holding your breath for what feels like an eternity, like waking from a nightmare to find yourself in bed or to finally be able to walk again after being so drugged up you can't get yourself off the bathroom floor and you have to crawl to your bed and hope you don't throw up again...this release of bondage, this breaking of the chains tying you down, having your spirit freed so you can fly and run to freedom.

It's all this and more...it's impossible to put into words because every metaphor is full of inadequacy.

Screams in the night being replace by sobs being replaced by gasps for air and finally laying there realizing everything you've wasted life on was worthless but oh the beauty, the clarity of knowing that it doesn't matter because love can rescue you at your last moments of life and that the blood already spent is enough to cover over the world's monuments to sin.

It's something not here yet but it is coming, something seemingly impossible but nearly tangible, feelings beyond consideration but grounded in this moment and place and time.

It is here, it is there, it is coming but has always been here even though we just haven't seen him.

It's every moment of my life played back at fast speed, rewinding to show every step I have taken and the thousands I have came into contact with and those whose faces I know but whose names I can't remember. Seeing the pain and loss of innocence painted on walls as murals and warnings for the horror show of life...but still the undercurrent of hope that rips the air from your lungs because the joy is so beautiful, so complete and so without end.

How wonderful, how beautiful, new forever and world without end.

Life and Grieving

I do not function well around people that are mentally retarded. Partly it is because my older sister has a small disability that developed because of oxygen deprivation when she was younger and ever since then she has had trouble learning...she wanted to go to college but wasn't able to...so instead so works at the same place my mom does (Blue Cross and Blue Shield) in the mail department.

I say that to bring up a part of my high school experience. When I started doing weekly Wednesday morning meetings at school there was always one guy who would always show up, regardless of whether or not anyone else did (including my close circle of friends) a guy named Thomas, who had a severe mental disability. When he was a young child he had drank some sort of cleaner and it almost killed him and so he had trouble talking at times but he had this ridiculously strong faith that he always shared with those around him and more often then not made me realize how shallow mine is.

It hurt to see him, to talk to him and hear him speak because it showed my own inability...my pride, my addiction to attention...how I needed people to pay attention to 'my' message...and it's not like Thomas realized what he was doing...to him it was just as natural as knowing when to leave class because of a bell ringing.

Anyway...like I said, he would always be there on Wednesday mornings, regardless. We were in the same grade as well. I don't know how he could understand the love of Christ except to say that he saw Jesus face to face in a way I barely understand and don't think I'll ever understand. No matter how hard I've tried to stop this I can't help but try to measure my success by quantity and how many people were at any given meeting or heard me speak...just this part of me that isn't bad necessarily but a part of me that misses the entire point at the same time.

The last time I saw Thomas was in the spring of 2007, the night before my grandmother's funeral, at the wake. He was brought there with the grandmother of a cousin of mine who use to be my best friend. I have never dealt with the loss of my grandmother and still keep trying to repress it and hold things back...the grief terrifies me...but of all the things I remember about that horrifying week was Thomas and my cousins grandmother coming up to me. The little old lady hugged me and like most southern ladies had this air of understanding about her...and I can't remember what she said but I do remember what happened next. Thomas, who is almost as tall as I am, walked up to me and hugged me and said that he was sorry...but everything would be okay because my grandmother was with Jesus right then.

I have no idea how I held myself together and didn't break down sobbing right there...but I did. I honestly hate when people talk about death and Jesus. I don't want to hear about how she or my dad is 'with Jesus'. I've never been good at dealing with loss of any kind...of having parts of me just ripped away...its a feeling that I think may be universal but tangible and paramount only to those at any moment of time...in other words we all may know what this feeling is like but it is a burden a person has to suffer through alone and something they can't be helped through. They have to choose to walk forward or allow the grief to smother them.

There is only so much we can know and that we can learn about life...but here we are. Belief and faith are not as much as something a person can choose...but He finds you...and will not let you stay where you are...and once you are His, He won't let go...no matter how hard you fight to hang onto these scraps of a life that no longer have any meaning.

Luckily blessings aren't just for the ones who kneel.

Luckily.

"Far, Far Away" - Five Iron Frenzy

Staring at the shoreline
wishing for some hope
the weight of empty fishing nets
is more than twisted rope
And underneath stern faces
they wait with baited breath
with broken hearts from hoping
while casting out their nets
See the figure on the shore
He speaks His words like plain men sing
His hands they still have holes in them
glory to the King

Can you hear the bells are ringing
far, far, away?
Can you hear the voices singing
far, far, away?
I know that one day soon a song shall rise
you’ll hear it with the sleep still in your eyes

And Peter was a liar
a traitor just like me
and Judas was a hypocrite
and Paul a Pharisee
When truth can be so distant
and hope evades our reach
Peter swam across the water
and found it on the beach

Can you hear the bells are ringing
far, far, away?
Can you hear the voices singing
far, far, away?
I know that one day soon a song shall rise
you’ll hear it with the sleep still in your eyes

I hear they’ll hang you upside down
stretched across two boards
for hearing distant voices
and crossing to the Lord.

Excerpt from 'The Screwtape Letters' by C.S. Lewis

"Work hard, then, on the disappointment or anticlimax which is certainly coming to the patient during his first few weeks as a churchman. The Enemy allows this disappointment to occur on the threshold of every human endeavor. It occurs when the boy who has been enchanted in the nursery by Stories from the Odyssey buckles down to really learning Greek. it occurs when lovers have got married and begin the real task of learning to live together. In every department of life it marks the transition from dreaming aspiration to laborious doing. The Enemy takes this risk because He has a curious fantasy of making all these disgusting little human vermin into what He calls His 'free' lovers and servants - 'sons' is the word He uses, with His inveterate love of degrading the whole spiritual world by unnatural liaisons with the two-legged animals.

Desiring their freedom, He therefore refuses to carry them, by their mere affections and habits, to any of the goals which He sets before them: He leaves them to 'do it on their own'. And there lies our opportunity. But also, remember, there lies our danger. If once they get through this initial dryness successfully, they become much less dependent on emotion and therefore much harder to tempt."

-Screwtape

And...now?

Jesus...what is any of this really worth to you?

Your perspective is eternity and time is a relative concept you laugh at.

What is this?

What is this madness called life?

Yeah...I'm asking why.

I'm sick of this, I'm just tired of the way things are and how they could be.

What is the point of hope, peace and love when they won't work in this world you made?

What of this?
What...what of this?

"Peace on Earth" - U2

Heaven on Earth, we need it now
I'm sick of all of this hanging around
Sick of sorrow, sick of the pain
I'm sick of hearing again and again
That there's gonna be peace on Earth

Where I grew up there weren't many trees
Where there was we'd tear them down
And use them on our enemies
They say that what you mock
Will surely overtake you
And you become a monster
So the monster will not break you

And it's already gone too far
Who said that if you go in hard
You won't get hurt

Jesus can you take the time
To throw a drowning man a line
Peace on Earth
Tell the ones who hear no sound
Whose sons are living in the ground
Peace on Earth
No whos or whys
No one cries like a mother cries
For peace on Earth
She never got to say goodbye
To see the color in his eyes
Now he's in the dirt
Peace on Earth

They're reading names out over the radio
All the folks the rest of us won't get to know
Sean and Julia, Gareth, Ann and Breda
Their lives are bigger than any big idea

Jesus can you take the time
To throw a drowning man a line
Peace on Earth
To tell the ones who hear no sound
Whose sons are living in the ground
Peace on Earth
Jesus sing a song you wrote
The words are sticking in my throat
Peace on Earth
Hear it every Christmas time
But hope and history won't rhyme
So what's it worth
This peace on Earth

Peace on Earth

"Ribcage" and "The Tide Begins to Rise" - Demon Hunter

Sole Need

Blessed spirit revive again
bring forth hope
rain down love
and revive again.
Bring forth the rain
upon this barren land
devoid of life.
Bring forth the hope
and the water we need.

I wish the 'right' thing was easier...whatever it is.

I hate decisions involving other people...it always means something bad must happen...something wrong or upsetting.

"October" and "New Year's Day" Live at Red Rocks - U2

"So Great A Salvation" - The OC Supertones

Woke up this morning
And I just had to thank God for my life
Just read through James' book
Start to pray and ask God for a wife
It's a time of devotion
As I sit and speak to my God unseen
Why should He listen?
Well I love Him and He's in love with me

Why me God? Why should You choose me?

On your team God, can You use even me?

I think a few years back
On a road that headed to nowhere
Now that You found me
I can see that You were always there
So great a salvation
But to You my Jesus what am I worth?
It's quiet times like this
I feel I get a glimpse of Heaven right here on earth

Why me God? Why should You choose me?

On your team God, can You use even me?

Oh, hold me in your arms of love
Sometimes I swear I feel your heartbeat
I could never ever thank You enough
But here's my life for whatever it's worth

If I had to have picked an imaginary friend it never would have been Jesus.

Thanks for choosing me...none of it makes that much sense...but when has love ever made sense? Especially coming from an eternal perspective.

One Horror Show of a Night

Panic Attack.
Walls too close.
Light too far.
Hard to breath.
Think.
Concentrate.
Feeling false and so fake.
Pain.
God, so much pain.
Cannot think.
Cannot see.
So hard.
So very hard.
Numbness.
Thoughtlessness.
Incomprehensibly numb.
Nothing coherent.
Lies, so many lies.
Faithless lies betraying me.
Exposure, naked exposure.
Every last lie and fable I've told.
Everything pointing to me.
So much pain.
Mind racing.
Heart pounding.
Sweat beading.
Pain crashing.
Coherently constricting around my heart.
Sensibilities making less sense.
Disposablity complete.
Incomprehensible pain I never understand.
Why?
What?
When?
Where?
Did it happen?
Now.
No more.
Please.
Please.
...please.

No more words to scream
just echoing inescapable silence.
I'm afraid of this darkness.
It comes back and never leaves.
This growing darkness laying claim to my heart
calling out to me from forever.
I hate this place
God I loathe it almost as much as me.
Broken shards of a mirror
just reflecting blood and smirks.
God, please?
God, please?
No more.
No more here.
Jesus Christ, light of the world
illuminate this impossibly dark night.
Break this frightened heart of stone
and pour in your life,
your blood spilled for me.
Oh Jesus,
please just for me.
Hold me tight in this never ending night.
Hold me close.
Never leave me as I have left You.
Oh please.
Please.
Savior, save me.

Je ne sais quoi.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Me

I'm not sure if I've been to this place before or not.

The music is familiar...I just am having trouble feeling anything. My hands are quite numb...my mind doesn't want to work...I feel...fear of some sort.

The end is soon...but soon is subjective. Time is relative so all of this is happening at once...streams of thought simultaneously viewed as the same from God's perspective.

That is how He feels such intense love towards us and hate towards sin...it's seeing the conclusions before they are evident to us...seeing the heavenly or hellish creatures we become and make evident with our lives in this world. It is not causality or fatalism...it is love that He allows us to live and then do the impossible with His help...we affect ourselves and this world more then we know...it is love that is salvation and freedom from self...sacrifice makes one kill this beast or narcissism and we find salvation in the mundane...this deep and passionate love that hates the cliche and the hypocrisy that most movements are on any given day.

I sometimes wonder if I'm going to be able to let go of the medication if I'm ever healed...if I can let go of feeling numb so I can feel something more...things are hazy and more painful...there is no euphoria...but it is the self hate I've wanted for a long time...and that is a narcissistic addiction I need salvation from.

Goodbye Can't Come Late Enough

Apathy kills
like the music bleeding from your head,
being a thrill
forgetting what it means to live.

Contrived thoughts
blended and poured out.
Nothing sought
with sanity out for the day.

Rhythmic pulses
running through sound and life
being their cheap version.
It's all so cheap indeed.

More morbid dark thoughts as I consider life
and really this past
and everything revolving
including this sun and stars
and the path that first brought me to you.

It's hard for me to keep focused when my only focus is on me.
Belated, belittling, broken and trite me.

I make it all about me anyway
why not this?

Choices and decisions.
Inferiority and life.
Dancing in the wind.
Nothing really
with everything so broken and displaced.
I want to run
and just hide
from the gaze of the mirror that I cannot see.

It all makes sense from a broken and disjointed point of view.
The need to end this,
end this now
anyhow
anyway
just ending the pain that overloads
and makes no sense.
Just some salvation from this.
Anyway and anyhow
some sort of life line away from this,
this empty smile of death.
I hate what I see
and wish I just couldn't see anymore.

Everything is dying and we want something more
something less than real
something plastic and disposable.
It's a pity that life can't be carried in such a way
carried in a bag and set up for your convenience.
Just so I could be a bit more normal for your sake.
Doesn't matter as long as I'm a carbon copy
of just whatever the hell it is you wanted.
Not this broken and mottled package
but this perfect little piece of glass
and porcelain shit that would make you happy.
Just you.
Really, that is about it.
Because you would think
that this is all about you anyway.
Just like the rest.

Inevitably speaking, it had to get worse and will continue to get worse until it improves or some other event happens.

Memories That Fall

I think my favorite season is Fall and Winter. The colder weather helps me to be able to breath and think.

But thinking is part of my problem.

I hate memories so often. They never leave and never return when I want them to. I have tried looking at the bright side...but the memories of past days are too bitter sweet. I would have rather to have never had the experience then to simply loose it at a later time.

It's selfish I know.

Life is more intricately complex by the moment and no one understands what the smallest shift in the world might cause...but honestly...I could live without most of it.

It is not making much sense to me right now...things are too convoluted in my mind...but God knows I wish I could just collect all of these scraps into a pile and let them burn. Let the memories of the past just turn into smoke and ash so I could be free of all of these lingering thoughts and questions.

I hate this place.

There is only shifting shades of twilight offering more questions instead of answers and it will always be this way. The price of knowledge is death by apathy...dispassionate hate for everything I have ever seen or felt. A disgust created by my interaction with everything and everyone. I hold myself with the prideful indulgence that somehow I am different and not as revolting as the vox populi...silly, isn't it?

And a bit sad really. Seeing an adult act like a child in just trying to wish everything away and letting hate and fear smolder and burn a deeper hole into my soul.

I just...I am drained of emotion right now. Of caring, of wanting to care. I do not even want to feel this anger and hate towards God and people. I want to stop hurting but the act of even carrying that out in any regards is impossible because of further moral conflicting and conundrums.

I hate seeing reports, seeing updates, feeling emotion and dejected elation at another missed calling and reminders of how terrible of a friend, family member, general member of society that I am.

I want to tell everyone and everything that the collective is intruding into my personal space and that you can keep your love for someone who isn't too enraged and intoxicated from the pain to give a damn.

I'm trying not to be completely lost in this narcissistic rage...but it is hard. I'm bitter and cynical and want to scream and stuff. I want to push books off the desk and throw a tantrum. I want to randomly light my journals on fire and let them burn like my insides are...I want to grab people by the shoulder and by the head and make them look into my eyes and see just why I am so upset. Why I am in such a rut, why I do not care about the future or what lucky unicorn rainbow laced happiness might hit me in the head.

I don't care.

I don't want any sort of connection right now...it is weakness that is causing me more pain because I feel like I am failing at every possible and conceivable junction of life.

If I ever come across any sort of life plan I wrote I'm going to use it to start the pyre of my collective written work. I don't care...it is all poorly contrived garbage anyway. It is expression of a blind fool who made the mistake of opening his tongue and now would have to have it cut cut off for him to ever shut up with these incessant and poorly written monologues.

You want truth? You speak of it like you have something to say. You open your mouth with a sneer and don't even see the irony of the fact your body is already shutting down, breaking down and you will be dead before you can finish your next word.

The universe is an ever expanding mass of disordered explosions that is winding down and cannot end soon enough before humanity finds even more brilliant ways of delivering death and damning people to more useless and boring pain.

I am even hating music. I can't stand to pick up and try to play anything because a bass guitar is not an efficient solo instrument. And most of the music is full of the cliche and full of meaningless efforts to do equally meaningless things.

Life has purpose, don't get me wrong. The problem is that that purpose revolves around sacrifice, deliberately putting oneself in pain and caring. Bothering to love...things that cause me even more pain.

Talking to people is excruciating sometimes...it is a pain, a deep cut drawing blood and I don't know how to stop the flow. I don't want to remember everything...the good or the bad. Both equally need to be purged so I can learn how to breath again.

I don't want to think of you right now...you need to go back into the past with the other shades that haunt my nightmares. I never knew you...or any of you...everything you speak is about death and blood...reminders of the Hell made out of this world. I never wanted it, couldn't ask for it...I just need to be away from you. Leave me please, leave this mind and maybe time might erase the last traces of your picture and voice from my mind and I'll never hurt from you again.

I don't like carrying about these ghosts of the past...these haunting and half formed memories that I am never sure about the truth or lies of any of them. I just need to find a cave to lay in and rest so maybe I can heal before the next assault on my mind and body begin.

It's like the sky line gets ripped open and rain pours down. Filling in these holes and making the lake grow. Pushing the gaps wider and making it hurt more. I wish it were possible to cut out every sound clip, every visual reminder, every thought and moment of time that was used up and wasted and worth absolutely nothing now...it is just a 'lost treasure' that has become an incredibly bitter reminder.

The taste cuts my tongue and makes me resent being born and even being here.

I cannot limp away from this place quick enough. Even if I have to drag my bleeding and broken self across this wasteland I am going to escape...someday and sometime...you may never know it or care...just wherever you are...you went beyond the sea to a place I couldn't follow if I tried...and here I am...I don't know...I don't know...I just do not know where this all began or where it will all end.

This disconcerting waste of life is just a further irritation...I want to run away from it all because there is nothing for me here...here. Nothing, nothing at all. It's devoid of anything I would consider life, love, meaning, purpose...God I hate all the random moments and images that course through my head...they will not turn off and it just makes me...causes me...drives me to ache for all the lost, all the pain, all the forgotten.

It's all something...something...something.

Burning pain just absolutely sucks.

There are two kinds of hypocrites; everyone and those living in their own little world.