If feeling alone and like I'm going crazy is Hell...then I'm a few levels above it currently.

The food is bad, the service is worse and I have this funny aftertaste in my mouth that tastes of guilt and shame.

And it's lonely out here in space.

Well I'm a terrible person.

I think...I've run out for now.

Which is sort of sad...I'm writing about writing nothing.

My mind needs to shush now.

"Comfortably Numb" - Pink Floyd

*sigh*

What is it with me and wanting to rush in and help people the second it seems they are in any trouble whatsoever?

I'm just...going to fade away on this.

I'm not wanted or needed...I'm just not sure which of those two are the more important qualifiers.

I would say in case of an emergency...you know how to get me...but that is precisely the problem I think. I am just a 'go to' guy when things get rough or go bad...not that I don't mind...seriously. Ministry is a thankless task...but I hate thinking of my friends as just being 'clientele' or something.

Like...when I move...I was thinking of having a small going away party...but it's just going to be like graduation night back in high school...or university...me sitting in my room smiling all sort of sad because I can't get ahold of anyone and no included me in any of the plans.

Sad sorta...the plus side...if there is one, is that it literally cannot get worse for me today.

I am one hundred percent sure it cannot and will not get worse.

Logistically speaking it is impossible.

Which is sort of a relief...help me to stay the course...please.

Looks like it's going to be one of those years...

Fact:

Storing loose change in a glass Sobe bottle for several years will in fact make the coins smell like the former drink, albeit with a particular metal scent worked in.

I now have coins with the smell of Liz Blizz Pina Colada.

No, they do not taste like Liz Blizz Pina Colada flavored drink.

I know it is history...but still...why does almost every Biblical story have to end in death?

For once...why can't the happy ending happen while still here on earth?

Help my weak faith grow...I've read Genesis a half dozen times and only You know how many more times I'll read it before I die...but I just need hope.

Please?

Help me to trust that this is the best way...that You know what you are doing and that You can give peace and love...even in this chaotic mess. Increase my weak faith, my faith which flees at the moment of pain.

Help me surrender to what is true, what is good, what is pure...not my false concepts over what is to become of me...but the plan you wrote at the beginning of time.

Quote of the Day - Part Three:

"It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes."
-Douglas Adams

Playful Intent

I'm like a child
who has lost his way.
Not knowing my left
from my right.

Just longing to hear something,
to hear something good
to know what I did wrong
and baby what I did right.
If anything.

I can't cry
it's much too late
much too late to drink
and I can't miss the beat
or bear the brunt
of repeated failures
of knowing.

Knowing nothing
is knowing enough for you
but never knowing
is enough to drive me mad
because after all
I'm just a child,
picking at the sores
knowing it's hurting
and not knowing why
just knowing I see blood
and feel a little hurt
and hoping it works out.

Band...please? Anyone? Someone?

So my new band name idea:

Finding Nineveh

Progressive electronic metal with preferably a backing orchestra.

Anyone?

Someone?

Love in the Eye of the Beholder

Bright lit regards
as I see the light unfolds
and God my soul burns
lifted on this melody
as I sing,
Lord sing unto thee.

Take this song,
this cracked voice
and shaken hands
as I hold here.
Braving my humanity
as I long to be
just to be
there again.

Was this love ever real?
Was it ever pure?
Did it exist beyond this sick mind?
We have the ecstasy of the soul
and the intense passion
of being lost in and within You
time and time again.

I feel Your touch,
your smell intoxicates me
and I'm drunk off of the heat
and the fervor of Your Word.

I'm so sick for my Love,
so sick to feel love
hurting so bad to hear
just hear again
just why
just how
all this came to be.

I want to run
I want to hide
just remain in shame
ashamed I never could be
never could love You
or shower You with the same grace
You gave to me.

I hunger
I thirst
I ache
so bad for You,
so dearly for You.
My Love, my love
I can't live without You
without Your words
without the Word
of hope
of life
of regards to peace.

Oh Lover
come once again,
return me to Your side
for I left in fear
and shame of the person I've been.
I need You tonight,
I need you today
every waking hour of life
be mine
and let me be thine.

Incandescently Lit

Freedom.
It's like a song bird
flying free
just before being claimed
being brought down low
purchased by gravity
and the time.

Love.
Colors burst from gray
but even so
nothing can stop age
as all fades
bitterly cold and jaded
as not even human hope
can last beyond tonight.

The Light in Her Eyes

See it sparkle,
see the Spirit dance.
Joy beyond joy,
life beyond life.

The dancing of time
making a fool of us all
as we run to the end
not sure of ourselves
and the monochromatic
method of which we sleep.

Here the music start,
a kick of a drum
and a blast of a harmonic.
The bitter taste of loosing
mixed with the love of loving
and knowing
and most days never caring
about where we're going;
hand in hand on love
we move again.

It's time making a fool of us,
time dancing across our lives
as our beauty fades outside
and the spire splutters inside
and the colors fade
as they bleed out
making this monochromatic picture.

Night time dancing
as we sing our song
hoping for hope
as the sand slips away
out of this broken jar
and everything we dreamed just fades
and dear God we pray
just for enough grace
to make it through today.

Quote of the Day - Part Two:

"To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering, one must not love. But, then one suffers from not loving. Therefore, to love is to suffer, not to love is to suffer, to suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love, to be happy, then, is to suffer, but suffering makes one unhappy, therefore, to be unhappy one must love, or love to suffer, or suffer from too much happiness — I hope you're getting this down."
-Woody Allen

About a three hour nap...surely that is enough.
Fortified with medication and oatmeal I shall brave the exercise bike yet again.

I just have to keep telling myself this is all physical training for 'Z'-Day and that should be enough motivation to keep me going for a while.

Breath deep, move forward, never look back and never stop moving.

Quote of the Day:

"The most difficult lie I have ever contended with is this: Life is a story about me."
-Donald Miller

Excerpt from Donald Miller's "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years"

Chapter Twenty Nine - "The Reason Why God Hasn't Fixed You Yet"

I'm convinced the most fantastical moment in story, the point when all the tension is finally relived, doesn't actually happen in real life. And I mean that seriously. I've thought about it fifty different ways, but I can't figure out how a human life actually climaxes so that everything on the other side of a particular moment is made to be okay. It happens all the time in movies and books, but it won't happen to me - and I'm sorry to say, it won't happen to you either.

Maybe the reason we like stories so much is because they deliver wish fulfillment. Maybe we sit in the dark and shovel sugar into our mouths because in so many stories everything is made right, and we secretly long for that ourselves.

It was touching when Steve, Ben and I realized what the climax to our movie was going to be. We've been writing toward it for more than a year, and we were practically in tears when we finally wrote that part of the script. It was a scene in which two characters met in confrontation, and one asked the other for forgiveness. We were back at Jim's house in Tennessee, sitting around his table. I was saying the words my character needed to say, Ben was adding dialogue from the other character, and Steve was typing it as fast as he could. Neither Ben nor I were looking at each other, because if we did we'd have cried - we'd have over character who didn't exist resolving a tension that never really happened. There's just something in the DNA of a human that responds to the idea of an event, a moment in which the upheaval we've all been working around is finally laid to rest.

But regardless how passionate the utopianists are, I simply don't believe utopia is going to happen. I don't believe we are going to be rescued. I don't believe an act of man will make things on earth perfect, and I don't believe God will intervene before I die, or for that matter before you die. I believe, instead, we will go on longing for a resolution that will not come, not within life as we know it, anyway.

If you think about it, an enormous amount of damage is created by the myth of utopia. There is an intrinsic feeling in nearly every person that your life could be perfect if you only had such-and0such a car or such-and-such a spouse or such-and-such a job. We believe we will be made whole by our accomplishments, our possessions, or our social status. It's written in the fabric of our DNA that life used to be beautiful and now it isn't, and if only this and if only that, it would be beautiful again.

I saw a story on '60 Minutes' a few months ago about the happiest country in the world. It was Denmark. A study done by a British university ranked the happiest countries, and America was far down the list, but Denmark was on the top. Morley Safer explored why. Ruling out financial status, physical health, and even social freedom, he landed on a single characteristic of the Danes that allowed them such contentment. The reason Danes are happy was this: they had low expectations.

I'm not making that up. There is something in Denmark's culture that allows them to look at life realistically. They don't expect products to fulfill them or relationships to end all their problems. In fact, in the final interview of the segment, Safer was sitting across from a Danish man and remarked to him that when Americans find out the happiest place on earth is Denmark, they are going to want to move there. Without missing a beat, the Danish man looked at Morley and said "Well, honestly, they will probably be let down."

I don't mean to insinuate there are no minor climaxes to human stories. There are. A kid can try to make the football team and in a moment of climax see his name on the coach's list. A girl can want to get married and feel euphoric when the man of her dreams slides a ring on her finger. But these aren't the stories I'm talking about. These are substories. When the kid makes the football team, he is going to find out that playing football is hard, and he's going to find himself in the middle of yet another story. And the girl is going to wake up three months into her marriage and realize she is, in fact, still lonely, and so many of her issues haven't gone away. And if both of these people aren't careful, they're going to get depressed because they thought the climax to their substory was actually a climax to the human story, and it wasn't. The human story goes on.

Growing up in church, we were taught that Jesus was the answer to all of our problems. We were taught that there was a circle-shaped hole in our heart and that we had tried to fill it with square pegs of sex, drugs, and rock and roll; but only the circle peg of Jesus could fill our hole. I became a Christian based, in part, on this promise, but the hole never really went away. To be sure, I liked Jesus, and I still follow him, but the idea that Jesus will make everything better is a lie. It's basically biblical theology translated into the language of infomercials. The truth is, the apostles never really promise Jesis is going to make everything better here on earth. Can you imagine an infomercial with Paul, testifying to the amazing product of Jesus, saying that he once had power and authority, and since he tired Jesus he's been moved from prison to prison, beaten and routinely bitten by snakes? I don't think many people would be buying that product. Peter couldn't do any better He was crucified upside down, by some reports. Stephen was stoned outside the city gates. John, supposedly, was boiled in oil. It's hard to imagine how a religion steeped in so much pain and sacrifice turned into a promise for earthly euphoria. I think Jesus can make things better, but I don't think he is going to make things perfect. Not here, and not now.

What I love about the true gospel of Jesus, though, is that it offers hope. Paul has hope our souls will be made complete. It will happen in heaven, where there will be a wedding and a feast. I wonder if that's why so many happy stories end in weddings and feasts. Paul says Jesus is the hope that will not disappoint. I find that comforting. That helps me get through the day to be honest. It even makes me content somehow. Maybe that's what Paul meant when he said he'd learned the secret of contentment.

After the girl I dated had been in Switzerland for a while, and I continued to see a counselor, I realized that for years I'd though of love as something that would complete me, make all my troubles go away. I worshiped at the altar of romantic completion. And it had cost me, plenty of times. And it had cost most of the girls I'd dated too, because I wanted them to be something they couldn't be. It's too much pressure to put on a person. I think that's why so many couples fight, because they want their partners to validate them and affirm them, and if they don't get that, they feel as though they're going to die. And so they lash out. But it's a terrible thing to wake up and realize the person you just finished crucifying didn't turn out to be Jesus.

I was interviewing my friend Susan Isaacs after her book 'Angry Conversations with God' came out. We were in front of a live audience, and I was reading questions to her off o index cards submitted by the audience. Because so much of her book talks about relational needs, relational fulfillment and unfulfillment, one of the questions asked was whether she believed there was one true love for every person.

Susan essentially said no. And she said that with her husband sitting right there in the audience. She said her and her husband believed they were a cherished prize for each other, and they would probably drive any other people mad. But then she said something I thought was wise. She said she had married a guy, and he was just a guy. He wasn't going to make all her problems go away, because he was just a guy. And that freed her to really love him as a guy, not as an ultimate problem solver. And because her husband believed she was just a girl, he was free to really love her too. Neither needed the other to make everything okay. They were simply content to have good company through life's conflicts. I thought that was beautiful.

There is a lot of money and power to be had in convincing people we can create an Eden here on earth. Cults are formed when leaders make such absurd promises. Products are sold convincing people that they are missing out on the perfect life. And political groups tend to scare people by convincing them we are losing Eden, or inspire people by telling them we can rebuild what God had destroyed. We all get worked into a frenzy over things will not happen until Jesus returns. The truth is, we can make things a little better or a little worse, but utopia doesn't hang in the balance of our vote or of what products we buy.

All of this may sound depressing to you, but I don't mean it to be. I've lived some good stories now, and those stories have improved the quality of my life. But I've also let go of the idea things will ever be made perfect, at least while I am walking around on this planet. I've let go of the idea that this life has a climax. I'm trying to be more Danish, I guess. And the thing is, it works. When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are. And when you stop expecting material possessions to complete you, you'd be surprised at how much pleasure you get in material possessions. And when you stop expecting God to end all your troubles, you'd be surprised how much you like spending time with God.

Do I still think there will be a day when all wrongs are made right, when our souls find the completion they are looking for? I do. But when all things are made right, it won't be because of some preacher or snake-oil salesman or politician or writer making promises in his book. I think, instead, this will be done by Jesus. And it will be at a wedding. And there will be a feast.

"Not Ready to Die" - Demon Hunter

Ah...a live version of my theme song from college.
Memories.

"The Tide Begins to Rise" - Demon Hunter

A Rose of Light and of Love

I need something beautiful just so I can save it,
save it and return myself
some of the dignity I sold
when I gave up and gave in
to the lie that I was nothing more
than just a puppet to my sin
and a slave to my every whim.

I'm ready to believe,
to feel something real
and to know
to simply know
that I can have a reprieve
and You died that I might live
and return this pain
with a white rose of peace
and a red rose of love.

Goodnight,
goodbye
take care my love
and know
you never walked alone.

"I Never Wanted" - As I Lay Dying

I never wanted
And I never cared before
Now take it all back
This is a new day

How I long to regress
To the days before I took upon myself
The obsessions of this world
A day of innocence equating beauty
For tomorrow may fall
And today is already gone

Now take it back
This is a new day

I've grown tired of chasing
Convinced I was in need
And now the years I've spent
Only a slave to this
Tomorrow may fall
And today is already gone
I will no longer adore
These things that will never satisfy me

Now take it back
This is a new day

I have seen my world change
And then go back to where it came
In this vicious circle
We are all brought back to life
Only to die again
But without these barren obsessions
I am simply free

Prayer for Salvation

You win some.
You loose some.
And other times your mind runs ahead of itself and into tangents that were pointless to begin with.

Clarity.
Focus.
A deep breath.
The darkness of the soul thrives on the chaos embodied in confusion.
It is hate which seeks control.
It is rage at the injustice.
It is the Dark Ones in the shadows which seek to reach and latch onto my soul.

My anger is no resolve for holiness.
It merely opens up the floodgates to the evil around me.
The sonic explosion of my scream as I turn against you and beat my fists into your mind, into your soul and rip apart your emotional immaturity is nothing but the source of the villainy inside of me.

I talk an excellent game of spiritual hypocrisy as my soul instantly runs to rage at the second I loose my footing.

I seek my own will, I see my own path, I want the world, I want the mindless self indulgence and as soon as I receive what I beg for...I explode in rage. I sell my soul at a cheap discount price to this world's religious whores for useless change.

I hate all of you.

This world will burn with the fuel of my senseless and depraved ego.

And why?

So I might make a mark?

Rage, seething and useless rage.

Rage that I let consume my heart, like the cancerous lust that forms the base of my mindless addictions. None of you reading this will understand, can understand the processes of my mental faculties because it would require you to listen beyond what is comfortable.

I want to destroy the world with my rage.

But my desire is to burn this tower of Babel I built with my hands.
This profane and perverse altar of Baal that I am willing to cut my wrists and bleed over as a sacrifice.
I want to eradicate this altar to Moloch on which I sacrificed my childhood innocence and what was stolen from me by the bastard demons that I see mocking me from the shadows.

Rage.

Furious rage.

An exhaustive collection of self entitled redundancy that I cannot possibly explain because you will never bother to try and look to see things through my eyes.

I want to throw up, I want to be sick just so I can get this poison out of my system. I want a cure that will let me never hurt inside, that will deliver me from every emotional insecurity and make me invincible when it comes from this ever so false sweet words that were nothing more than lies contrived to fool me into believing in the fragile and useless human heart.

I want my rage, I want my wrath to have no end but ultimately I am just as useless as I am weak.

I lay in wasted pain as I throw up the poison in my lungs and I cry for help.
I cry because I do not know why I am angry.
Do I have a right to spit venom because I wear my heart on my sleeve?
Do I have right to wage war because I cannot control my mind?
Because I refuse to control my mind?
Do I have fair access to violence to use in destroying the evil in me?

Love is the only cure for this useless disease of hate that consume my body, my mind, my soul, my entire being...every breath I take is corrupted, every thought is weak and I lay down and simply cry.

I am lost without You.
Everything else is useless.
I wasted breath on useless things.
I cried out to You and need to be rescued.
I want to be cut out of this reality and returned to You.
I want to feel my spirit leave while it can, I no longer know why I have fought.
I just know that You are You and all I want.

Rip my desires away, tear away this torn soul that lays in tatters. I do not want to desire this anymore...I not longer want to feel the need for any intimacy outside of Yours. I don't want to be touched, I no longer want to feel...I just want to feel the full power of Your wrath against the sins I refuse to repent of.

Destroy me.
Smite my existence into nothing.
Bring me into the lower levels of Hell so I will no longer be.
Break apart every molecule, split every cell and divide every corrupted atom that composes my existence.

Destroy me before I spread the plague of my hate.

And rebuild me.
Create me anew.
Make me good, make me pure like only You can.
I can do nothing expect pray for solace, pray Your love endures my senseless pride.

I am lost about what to do.
My plans are nothing.
I am nothing less than a broken tool in a war against life.
Convert me.
Beat me from a sword into a plow-sheer.

I've seen everyone around as being part of some utterly useless game.
I've seen and felt emotions that were ultimately a part of nothing more than the false reality my mind created for me to live in. As soon as reality hits the cracks appear and blossom into this ugly red thing that is my blood pouring steady from the black lined veins.

I see the spider in my heart, the unholiness that seeks my will as its own.

I can't pray for You to forgive me Father because I knew, I knew going in the addiction and the hate I feel when things do not work. I know how useless and ultimately pointless every relationship, every connection is.

They leave or more often than not simply die.
It's the root of my insecurity, I want humans to last and to be God for me. I want to be treated like a child and feel my hand being pulled when all I have left is this soul, this beaten soul covered in mud.

Can You still clean me up?
Do You even want me still?
Why, why did You die for worthless scum like me?
Why did You create this disgusting race of humanity?
We're not even worth the dignity of being stepped on like a cockroach.
We have achieved nothing and will only succeed in killing ourselves faster by the second.

How are we made in Your image, when all we do is eradicate?
Are we just made to die?

Don't leave things as they are.
Don't let things remain.

Break me, destroy me, rip me asunder and make me a tool for You.
Make me something that will heal instead of destroy.
My life is worthless.
Save me, heal me or eradicate me before I take the task into my own hands.

I cannot be content with going halfway.
You know my heart and how much hurt I suffer from trusting and giving it away to things that never had a right to hold it. All I wanted was a perfect cherry blossom in a world that only burns and eats at the beauty in it.

I want to vent my venom and rage by ripping the demons apart with my bleeding hands. I want to fulfill my need for senseless hate by creating the next generation of broken.



Everything is spinning, falling and twisting out of control.

Jesus, Jesus, I know I'm not alone.
I know I have never been alone.
I know others will stand with me but it still hurts.
I feel isolated.
Like my soul is being eaten by cancer.
Please do not leave me here.
Give me my task,
send me now.
Do you not see the angst,
the anguish shredding my soul to pieces?
I want to love but I want to leave this Hell!
I hate it here,
I can't stand the feelings of isolation,
knowing I'm abandonment
and knowing these feelings will only worsen.
Jesus, this world is so fucked up.
All the innocents raped and murdered
and somehow,
somehow this is Your perfect will?

Hold me Jesus.
I only have You.
I will only have You.
I wasn't made to hug others
so please hold me.
Take me in Your arms,
give me a holy kiss
and purify me of me.
I want to give You me,
give You my soul all over again.
My body, my mind, my heart
and my everything.
Make this new day new.
Like only you can do.
Abba, Father, Lover
take this soul.
Forever and forevermore.