N.L. Church Notes 7-20-09

Postmodernism...oh joy. >_<

Epistemology - how one reaches 'the truth'

Unless truth is formed by being given or what you reject.


Recognizing different places/persons/things which help give us negative formations of truth...political, religious...peoples and groups that hold their version as superior and champion that cause...whether consciously or otherwise.


It's easy to relapse into false notions of God if we do not think critically as to why we believe and think.


Exodus 32:1-6, 21-24, 35
-Part where Moses goes up to get the Ten Commandments and is taking 'too long'. The Israelite had been waiting 400 years in slavery...but they get bored and ask for Aaron (Moses' brother) to make them an idol. And Aaron made a golden calf idol (which they were familiar with in Egypt...they adopted a false cultural god because they were not getting what they wanted when they wanted from their idea of God).

-Postmodernism...a post is the reaction to the base word of the phrase...it is a reaction to modernism; the period of historical development where we had a way of thinking, started in the 14th century with the Renaissance, to the 17th the Enlightenment...the idea is that there WAS objective reality...truth that could be discovered...truth could be missed and found...one's job was to find that truth.

-All opinions are held as the same.
-Pluralism society is allowing all thoughts to be treated equal...popular notion is that all options and thoughts are correct.
-Faith...more like a favorite song or the number of jelly beans in a jar?
-It is like the jelly beans...an absolute and concrete idea that we may not get exact but is real.
-You have to have a universal God to have a personal God...otherwise he is merely pop thought.


Individualized truth 2 Corinthians 11:3-4
-The deception of Eve in the garden.
-Genesis 3, 'knowing good and evil'...truth and understanding beyond God, a truth that is personal
-Intimacy is created by exclusivity. True love can only be built on a individual level. Allowing 'idols' to get between our relationship with God makes things shallow and empty.
-John 1 - personal Jesus


1 Corinthians 1:2; 2:2
-The oneness of the church is based on the Blood of Christ...everything we believe is based on Jesus, his death and resurrection...John 14:6...who is Jesus? How does he bridge this gap between us and God...and makes thing REAL, PERSONAL...regardless of our belief and doubt.
-If we are freed by the love, the intimacy with Jesus...then we are not threatened by differences and people being who they are.
-Moderates in the sense of being flippiant with a relationship...nay...being moderate and willing to think outside the box...yay.
-Being like Jesus...loving people just as they are...showing love and not letting differences stop us from being friends and showing love.
-Nothing they do effects what we believe...when we are exclusive in our relationship with God we're freed to love people with NO conditions.
-Different perspectives make things more beautiful...true believers are taught by anyone and everything.

-The objectivity of Christianity isn't to win but to love.
-God is the God of everyone.

-Everything has two sides but it is like flypaper, it all depends on which side the fly lands on. Only one side allows true freedom.

Matthew 28:18-20
-Always wish us.
-All authority and with us.

** ** **

Thought:

Lord, you have shown you are a constant presence in my life by being...by creating, loving and carrying me through the night.


** ** **

My own personal problem, as I try to define it, is with the religious Christian. I see them setting up walls to keep people out...and I want to run and avoid real relationships with them so that I won't have to have my prejudices challenged.

My personal prejudices is taking a beating to the face with a baseball bat.

I hate religious speech, I hate double talk, I hate the jargon...so much that I let myself hate the people...even though I do not know them or what they could be thinking or doing. I am trying to play angry God throwing down wrath...a preconceived false idol that pretends to love while backstabbing at a moment's notice.

The problem is that this Jesus...this Jesus I've been talking to for nearly fifteen years...is demanding. Freedom requires the sacrifice of my mind...soul..my very being...it requires I lay down my rage, down my arms and allow myself to be loved.

It is so true that intimacy...true, vivid intimacy can only occur on a one on one basis...with honesty and sincerity...and I am the master of what I hate. I despise people who do double talk because it flows so easily...I weave lies so convincingly that I no longer know the truth...who is who...what is what...it's such a tangled web that I want to just burn everything and run away.

I want peace...peace that goes beyond understand...that goes beyond my fallacy and instead allows love to change...divine and intoxicating love...that goes beyond words, phrases, fallen human constructs...and digs to the matter of my broken heart.

If I can pray it is for freedom from myself, my slow lingering death at the hands of self...it's hard to sit here and I would rather run to noise...but silence the noise and still my rapidly beating heart...wipe away the tears and soothe the ache...just let things be...let things be as You will.

I need this consistency...Your constant love...Your constant grace.

I'm so tired of fighting this loosing fight...just help me to give up these shreds of a life that is holding me back. I have dug my hole and built my tower...they are nothing but scratches in the dirt and a few rocks piled on each other...like a certain pair of sisters in that story...my will be done has lead to me laying here dying...precious Lamb...one who has already spilled His blood...is there forgiveness enough for yet another lost one?

Can You, will You still carry me?

I'm too weak to stand and the nausea is a Hell...can you carry me out of this and help me to face the day?

While the proverbial knife is in my soul...would you mind just turning it a bit more to the left?

"When the World Ends" - Dave Matthews Band

...disappointment....disappointment...disappointment...

...practice, practice, practice...

Hate, much like ignorance and willing stupidity, is habit of which it is hard to break.

"Invictus" - Brave Saint Saturn

I've been breaking my back
Only to show You how very lost one can be
And bitterness fires through me
The brilliance that was is flickering cold
Slowly burning to ash
I'm choking on pride, I'm closing my eyes
Till one day I'm scared to go back

You part the shadows
Light of the world
Destroy the blindness
Peace eternal

Take this broken heart
If it brings You praise
Take this beaten soul
Shivering hands I will raise
Hope unstoppable
Sing the morning sun:
'Wake up, oh sleeper
The daylight has come'

You are, You are
Invincible
You are, You are
Unbreakable

Take this broken heart
If it brings you praise
(You part the shadows)
Take this beaten soul
Shivering hands I will raise
(Light of the world)
Hope unstoppable
Sing the morning sun:
(Destroy the blindness)
'Wake up, oh sleeper
The daylight has come'
(Peace eternal)

You are, You are
Invincible
You are, You are
Unbreakable

I've been breaking my back
Only to show You how very lost one can be

Esoteric Playground

This is me and this is you.
I'm hoping for peace and praying for understanding.

I'm even sure about...about...
I'm just not sure.
The more I hear this the further
the further the confusion.

Good God, when does this end?
I'm carrying poison in my veins,
playing at being Messiah
while carrying this broken hope.
Lies I can never cease to love
as I long to break free,
run free
into some hope.

Freedom from hate,
freedom from lies
freedom from the pain.

και εστιν αυτη η αγγελια ην ακηκοαμεν απ αυτου και αναγγελλομεν υμιν οτι ο θεος φως εστιν και σκοτια ουκ εστιν εν αυτω ουδεμια

Such lofty hope.

I'm a bad friend.

I hate going to wedding...either in person or in my dreams.

watchtower1.serverroom.us:9074

I think I just stumbled...yeah stumbled into you...

"Feel Good Inc" - Gorillaz

Compromising Thoughts

It is annoying how this vow...this promise...is almost a noose around me...not a bit guiding me but something that starts to choke me when I try to run.

Divine Love, so intoxicating...incomparable and no person can hope to understand.

I feel it in music...this rage...this desire; all of these revised and revived intoxicating lies mixed with hope.

It's so easy to step out of my skin on here and be a stranger...it's a refuge of sort...but I forget who I am, who the real me is outside of these false identities.

I wish i could rip my heart out so I could just give it to You fully, no more lies...no more fallacy driven compromise.
You really should sing angel, sing through your uncompromisable compromise.

What does it mean to be human?
Really human?
What has defined the terms?
How did You expect things to fall?

I'm tired of existential dread.
Will you let me cash it in with my desires in exchange for blood?

I hate dreams. Vivid dreams.

I wish people never came here so I could into the horrifying details.

Oie.

Tryst Today

Some Lou Reed and thoughts of you.
Walking in and out of mind
while going up on a sugar trip.

Wanting to go here and there
not knowing where you might be.

Just wanting to take this walk
right out on the wild side,
maybe in boots or just lies.

I wish I could have Muse give me a call about what to write...

Nothing.

Just trying to find my way back home. It's been a long night. I missed the dawn and now things are still just dark but I'm running to You, just as fast as this broken body can take me.

"Losing My Religion" - REM

Short of Flying

It is...scary but reliving to know I am not in control. What little that is entrusted to me is screwed up enough...

Yesterday was a good day so I forgot to write...today was a good day...up until the...it wasn't a fight...or an argument...a chiding or scolding wouldn't be correct either...a reminder of where I am, where I am not...and just shadows of imperfection around the fading light.

How is it 2007 is so far in the past? Or 2004? Or really 1986? These numbers...periods of time with no real meaning outside of reflections...1989 and 1994...my heart being ripped
out before I knew it could be.

There is just such a large amount of confusion wrapped around doubt.

I hate caring, the energy invested in people that so often leads to pain...I mean me saying that is like wishing I didn't need water or oxygen...asinine childish thoughts.

"But the world is ugly,
The world is ugly even after you"

Running surely won't work either.
Mindless self indulgence has exhausted itself.

Somethings never change, something never get old and somethings never cease to sicken me.

I may be internship-less but I am at least Mayo clinic bound on August 10th.

"Zooropa" - U2

Thought from an Irish Poet:

"If you want to serve the age, betray it."
-Brendan Kennelly

Trying to Sort...

So little has any real meaning...that isn't ripped apart by the madness of subjectivity...here we are...now what?

I'm bottoming out...I'm breaking apart and it feels like I'm free falling with no sense of direction.

If I sit here, If I lay here begging for help...strength to stand...will You bother to meet me halfway?

I don't know how to put this in words to where people can actually understand...it's frustrating that it seems that only the Divine know why...and can understand...but the words are so futile.

It still hurts.

Deep inside.

My heart is screaming to You in the middle of this off key notes and over the sounds of cracking bone. Even though I'm a false child of Israel my brethren are the Pharisees and serpents. From my cradle and until my grave you will see my hypocrisy and the hate I've sown in Your name...my childish ignorance has never been an excuse, nothing is to be explained because the failure is obvious.

You, You are truth.

My existential hypocrisy is rotting my heart and still...You have carried my sin, my poison, this living corpse that needs to be renewed.

I've seen too much death...I've lost so much...does the hollow feeling ever go away? How can I miss someone I barely knew so much?

"Jesus bless the crocodiles, forgive the cobras and all the snakes
Open up your arms to carry all of our mistakes
Forgive the basilisk, forgive the moccasins and adders too
Have mercy on each alligator that never lived for you
I myself hatched from an egg, no white light from above
Just another ancient serpent that never earned your love
But still you find me underneath the rocks and in the ground
I cowered there just short of air and never made a sound
It’s true that I’m in love with you, and even in my shame
You wipe away the imperfections and take away the pain
You wrap your loving arms around this wretched thing called me
Your love is all I’ll ever need, your love has set me free

The truth is only you"

-Showbread, "Age of Reptiles"



"Thomas said, "Master, we have no idea where you're going. How do you expect us to know the road?"

Jesus said, "I am the Road, also the Truth, also the Life. No one gets to the Father apart from me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him. You've even seen him!""
-John 14:5-7

Loud Words

I don't know.

I'm not sure what I want to do except throw up.

I can't put stuff into words...fire...confusion...things and things again.

I hate not being able to phrase things.

I want to understand why...why...why...but no words fall. Nothing that can help make sense of things. I want to get out of this Hell. I hate this place. This fake words. The hollow conversations...people not understanding...not managing to listen and God I'm just so enraged and sad and not able to take much more of this before I snap.

Before I can sleep.

Just a philosophical tidbit:

Karl Marx as an idiot. Religion isn't the opiate of the people, it shocks you awake in vividly horrific ways. Ignorance, shallowness and racism are the true opiates because they require no prior thought or effort to obtain.

I'm holding onto less than nothing...what do you expect now?

Words...new words please?

"Far, Far Away" - Five Iron Frenzy

"The First Time" - U2

And...here we go again.

Why is it imperative I stay here?
Would you bother being with me if I just sold all this stuff and drove in some random direction?

I don't understand.

At what point do you begin and I end?

Is this just some kind of sick mind game?

Day Time Cafes

Soft clever words have nothing on you.
I'm not sure I believed them anyway.
I'm the master of distraction
and have no clue where time begins and I end.
It's not like I meant dinner for two
or for the feelings to outlive the day.
It's just me in my hat and coat
wishing for a way out.

When a blessing becomes a curse...

"Clubbed to Death" - Rob D

"Lonely Day" - System Of A Down

Oie vay.

Hrmm...free sushi...sad sushi...but free...be back soon...

The Grey Sunrise

Been up since about three AM reading...thinking...hoping...praying.

Going to sleep at 7 or 8 PM is actually so much better for me...I wake up almost feeling rested and so much more energetic and better...now if I could just cut out the rest of the bad stuff from my diet and run every day...I dare say I might make a recovery before the Mayo clinic can get me in.

I'm feeling hope...hope burning deeply inside me.

It's more then any thing, any person, any set of doctrinal rules can give me...knowing You are loved...without reason other then I am...it's so alien, so foreign from every relationship in my life which has demanded me to love before being loved first. It's like every crummy MMO which supplants a laundry list instead of a vivid and immersible story.

I've been tied of games and shallow relationships for a while...I've been on a sabbatical without meaning to for a while...but a sucky one in which I have trouble sleeping at night, I feel guilty for eating the food here and for all rights and purposes almost feel as if I am some parasite leeching off the general 'goodness' of those who claim me.

I hate those thoughts.

I'm tired of feeling that way.

I'm ready for what is next, I'm ready to see things on a different level.

I've been cruising and have no idea why I've been here for so long except that I've been sick. People do not understand why I so desperately want out of this house, this town, this state, this way of life...it's not that I hate the people or take the relationships...the LOVE for granted...but...have you felt the truth brush against your heart? Your mind?

I'm infected with this eternal love.
This impossible goodness.
Jesus shouldn't be God.
God shouldn't exists.
Humanity should have never been.
None of this should be possible but my God it is.
The cross, the love, the pain, the beauty...all of this.

All so vivid and real.

This blood pumps through my heart just as my heart burns to go to the darkest night and share love. Love that is offered for free and demands honesty.

It's the intoxicating love, love that brings me to tears and rips me from every level of comfort that demands I kneel and jump forward into the unknown.

I got too excited.
I'm hurting bad in my stomach now.
I don't care what this is, I don't give a damn if it kills me today or in twenty years. I don't want to die but whatever this is it is, whatever will be will be and the only thing I care about is making this next step.

Sunrises Forever

I've got nothing but time
but time just missed me
on my way out the door.
Before I knew who I was
I was here waiting,
waiting just for You.
Waiting for the sun to rise
and to hear of Love.

To know the sun will rise
after the darkest night,
to know that You thought of me
with every new rose that would bloom,
to know that You saw the same beauty
in watching the birds in flight,
to know that it's not crazy
to hope to believe that one day
Love will be real
and that every tear will be wiped away.

We've walked this far together
and there is still so much left to do
while waiting and still just waiting
for the world to be made anew
Beyond dusty tomes
feeling the beauty of love
just as it is new.
Holding to the hope
clutching to the dream
that the dawn is coming
and this light that is You.

Is it okay to say this?
Is it still okay to hope?
After we have seen this
seen the ugly
and have plumbed the darker depths
and the Hells hidden in man's heart,
can we still hold to Love?

Every passing star in the night sky
just makes me hold to You
knowing the little I do
and just hoping I can stop crying
long enough to remember
the tempest Your love encompasses
and I know that You know,
You've always known I love You.
With the Muse's hands guiding me
with the whispers of Love
I know You know
so let these words be few
as I hope to fall deeper into Love,
further into grace
and know just know
there is no end
just this endlessly new beginning.

Strange and wonderful indeed.

I have such an intense need to talk but no way to express it.

A brick wall.

My face keeps crashing into it.

Of course I would miss you...in every sense of the word and phrase...

I feel nauseated...quite sick...why do I make so many stupid choices?

...

Argent Dawn

Trailos

Resettlement of the Heart

Oh dear Love, dear Love
this is me speaking.
How lame are my limbs
how dumb is my tongue
and how deep in my aching.

My words may not express
even as a Muse hovers near
and I may only confess
my insufficiency here
as I fumble loosely for change,
change here
change now
a change for forever.
Grace to heal these wounds
Grace to forever rearrange
the structure of my heart.

Rewrite Your words on my heart.
Restructure so I may love,
break this wall down
so I can feel
and I can know whom this love is of.

"One" - U2

An anti love song for the win...

Sacred Falling Notes

I feel and see the futility.

I want to give up.

It's not real.
None of it ever was.

Strip me of my eyes so I can on longer see, take my ears so I may not hear, take my heart so I will never love and strip away my ability to feel.

It's not a question of believing in love...my faith is weak and I doubt it can overcome the disgusting frailties of humanity...I doubt few if any know what this Love is...what it means in the context of eternity...how it rips meaning from Your life and makes everything worthless. everything eternally worthless.

Too numb to feel and too dumb to speak.

I'm fooling around with cheap drink, cheap drugs and even cheaper sex not even knowing the source of my own misery is me waking to realize I never slept. It's all running in circles while making me feel cheap, cheaper and much more less than I truly am.

I remember eating a sandwich with her and it hurts.

I want everyone to like and accept me, when I don't get what I want I become this child who hurts and hurts with no sense or bearing of the the eternal and how it is all it is.

I doubt many understand this...and if they do it's distance ripping things apart...I want to give up and surrender my soul but it feels like I have nothing left...nothing except hope and trust that I am something more then a dying body with an infection infested soul.

Does it really matter that...even though I make it about me...that nothing except Everything is related to me?

You made it this way...everything and nothing...all at once.

How beautiful, how terrifying of You.


Isaiah 1:18-20
""Come. Sit down. Let's argue this out.
"This is God's Message:
"If your sins are blood-red,
they'll be snow-white.
If they're red like crimson,
they'll be like wool.
If you'll willingly obey,
you'll feast like kings.
But if you're willful and stubborn,
you'll die like dogs."
That's right. God says so."