Quote of the day:

“Boredom is the root of all evil - the despairing refusal to be oneself.”
-Soren Kierkegaard

Things, things, things...

-Chiropractor at 3PM today
-Going to book store to get book list and prices.
-Begin Kierkegaard research
-Get supplies for classes

I tried.

...if only you knew...tis a pity you do not...

And...here we go...yet again...

Quote of the Day:

“...emptiness is only a disguise for an intimacy of God's, that God's silence, the eerie stillness, is filled by the Word without words, by Him who is above all names, by Him who is all in all. And his silence is telling us that He is here.”
-Karl Rahner

Self Serving Ego Rant

Evangelism feels like it is such an abused subject.
What is pure, what is evangelism done in love?
Not the Bible beating and ego bashing sort of crap that does nothing except prove peoples negative preconceptions of Christians?

The way Christian culture is...it is so easy to just live in a bubble and sit around in a circle patting each other on the back and acting like we're doing God a service by going to church on Sundays and taking Bible verses out of context about what it means to be a great patriot and what this country will look like when we get a leader who will ship all the 'undesirables' off to California and then detonate the fault lines so it can float off and be it's own little Sodom and Gomorrah.

Evangelism, sharing 'good news' can't be done with hyperbole as much as it cannot be done with false pretense.

I have been apart of numerous short term evangelism projects: street preaching, hanging out tracts as well as going door to door doing surveys.

I have also been a part of actual mission projects where I have gone to various cities and we worked on old houses doing painting and roofing.

Of the two of those only the latter every really produced any real results because it was the only one in which Jesus was really being shown. Evangelism cannot merely be words...it is action. It's sort of what Saint Francis of Assisi said, "Preach the Gospel always, and if necessary, use words."

Actions are so much more meaningful and important than merely sharing a piece of paper with words on it. The Gospel has always had power for transforming lives and will continue to do so but the only way to get past the hearts flooded with anger and cynicism is to break down the walls with simple Christian love.


Something that bothers me greatly...is why is there so much anger from those professing to be Christians? Why do people march around with picket signs declaring "God hates fags" and other equally unsavory slogans? As though they alone were ordained to be mouthpieces for the Almighty?

What sort of broken person does it take to make an individual who refuses to feel compassion for the poor, those dying of AIDS, children forced into prostitution?



"Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other."
-John 13:34-35

"If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man's religion is worthless. Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world."
-James 1:26-27



Somehow and in someway this is supposed to be what Christian love is...loving God, others and ourselves. Loving enough to do the right thing but not to abuse others.

I do believe there is a real place for preaching, teaching and the like...but the single greatest absence is actual doctrine being put into tangible practice. More than just endless debates but actual positive action to the sick and hurting.

Of all the people in the world...one would think Christians would be the last ones to judge.

I know the reasons why I get angry and scared...it's because something is getting too close to my heart and what I am trying to hide.

Is it too much to ask, to much to want...for this false sincerity to take a permanent vacation in my own life?

All the ideas in my head about wanting basic and pure love and religion that is based upon giving up everything except the bare necessities is terrifying...I do not want to die clutching these useless things when I can be out helping other people.

I can't figure out if I am just making excuses, if I'm just running from Jesus or if this is the path I am supposed to walk...I do not want my life to be just a waste of me asking questions and being too terrified to do anything.


So many questions...I have so many doubts about myself and others...maybe one of the things I've been missing with a regular church family is people to help encourage me and remind me that I am not in fact insane...that there are others who believe just as ardently as I do in the eternal life of Christ.

I want to take the faith I have, the impossible Love I feel for Christ and let it be real in my interactions...my friends I have been living with, my family at home, at the school I'm going to...and...and...there is a blank. I don't know where I am going or what I am doing exactly...

I am anxious and afraid because there is this upcoming gap in my life that I do not know will be filled in with...if anything. I do not want to get lost in depression an anxiety again...because there are so few people I can actually trust to talk about this...I feel like I've been screwed over so often by people who never meant anything malicious...because face it, who can handle living around someone who lives in such extremes as I do?

Nothing is every in moderation...it is all or nothing...just like how I wish things could be with the way evangelism was handled...not just simple gestures but life giving devotion to others.

I wish things could be more simple and all the various voices of my soul, my body, Jesus, temptation and everything could be quite long enough for me to hear the gentle whispers of the One True God...not the false notions I have of Him...but who He is really...

In ways I feel like I wouldn't recognize my savior if I saw him...I'm so obsessed with finding perfection in the mud that I cannot really imagine what Jesus means by life...love and wholeness.

I do not know but God do I wish to find it...wherever and however...

Similar to Wolfwood, I simply must ask, "Lord, what the Hell am I doing?"

God my body feels like a train wreck this morning.
I really do not feel like driving 9 to 11 hours to go back to Alabama.
Bah.

Foolish Words

My tongue is tired
from being tied up in these investments,
subtle lies I never saw coming
until they blossomed into fruition.

Beginning at this moment's ending
I want to say just
how sick I am
of every falsehood grabbing my heart
and lifting me to despair
just as I begin to fall apart
all over again,
just for words that could never mean...

Crying every tear
and feeling every sigh
I tire of this broken connection
and the static that rips through my mind
with every breath
of this hellish air.

Given wings to fly
I might begin to see
how all of this,
every shred of pain
is from this prison
I built with my hands
and will only die
at the Word of One.

Quote of the Day:

“The price of inaction is far greater than the cost of making a mistake.”
-Meister Eckhart

Was awake enough tonight to watch "The Boondock Saints".

A freaking brilliant film.

Quote of the Day:

“You can judge the quality of their faith from the way they behave. Discipline is an index to doctrine.”
-Tertullian

I can't remember why...

I need help to even be able to think of why I should wake up...why I am fighting.

I feel...I feel...is that part of the problem?
Seeing those who hurt...it's like it is pulled into my soul...

I'm so tired...so tired...

I'm trying to smile but I'm so tired and I ache so badly right now...

Jesus...please do not leave me here with myself as my only companion.

Oie.

So beyond tired and weariness...feeling sick but have been worse...

Not looking to the trip back...I hate driving.

Could be worse I suppose.

I really need to work at being a less jealous and overall less horrible person.
Oie...the things I need to do today...

Early Morning Reflections in the Ice

Levels of goodness and duality mixed with the profound dissatisfaction that comes with expectations being broken upon the harsh paved path of reality.

I cannot express the exact feelings and thoughts that course through my mind, open wounds and curious sights.

Beloved vistas being bathed in disconcerting greens and violets, reasons of being escaping me as the overall meaning gets lost in the pages between reality and the perverse.

Profoundly happy, nihilistic flag waving, thoughts permeate my mind at this hour.

Lack of sleep.
Yes, lack of soul.

I'm addicted to attention and feeling whatever it is my tainted and twisted soul longs for at any given moment. The twisted nethers swirl in movements of hope and the dance of enticing my every last desire.

I want to be freed from this nature that attempts to rip my Love apart. I cannot love, it is impossible for the base nature of my soul and being is perverse hate, born out of rebellion that rejects all good.

I am nothing more than a broken instrument of war longing to kill and destroy.

My only hope is the sacred Lover who knew no sin, who has carried my failures from the heavens, to the earth, to Hell and back to life and reunited with Love.

He took the full cup of the wrath of God, drank of it fully and placed it down and never flinched.

Sin, is so real and is manifest in every lie and lust that tries to own my soul and make me into the fel beast that does nothing but pridefully desires everything that is not mine.

My selfishness threatens to consume me.
But I refuse to become this forsaken.
This mindless beast.

Wheaton College for my Phd?

Hrmm...maybe, maybe so...

Exhausted enough to feel melancholy.
Mostly amazing day.
Even though...

More than I expected and more than I ever could deserve.

"Thank God It's Christmas" - Queen

Isaiah 53

Who believes what we've heard and seen? Who would have thought God's saving power would look like this?

The servant grew up before God—a scrawny seedling,
a scrubby plant in a parched field.
There was nothing attractive about him,
nothing to cause us to take a second look.
He was looked down on and passed over,
a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand.
One look at him and people turned away.
We looked down on him, thought he was scum.
But the fact is, it was our pains he carried—
our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us.
We thought he brought it on himself,
that God was punishing him for his own failures.
But it was our sins that did that to him,
that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins!
He took the punishment, and that made us whole.
Through his bruises we get healed.
We're all like sheep who've wandered off and gotten lost.
We've all done our own thing, gone our own way.
And God has piled all our sins, everything we've done wrong,
on him, on him.

He was beaten, he was tortured,
but he didn't say a word.
Like a lamb taken to be slaughtered
and like a sheep being sheared,
he took it all in silence.
Justice miscarried, and he was led off—
and did anyone really know what was happening?
He died without a thought for his own welfare,
beaten bloody for the sins of my people.
They buried him with the wicked,
threw him in a grave with a rich man,
Even though he'd never hurt a soul
or said one word that wasn't true.

Still, it's what God had in mind all along,
to crush him with pain.
The plan was that he give himself as an offering for sin
so that he'd see life come from it—life, life, and more life.
And God's plan will deeply prosper through him.

Out of that terrible travail of soul,
he'll see that it's worth it and be glad he did it.
Through what he experienced, my righteous one, my servant,
will make many "righteous ones,"
as he himself carries the burden of their sins.
Therefore I'll reward him extravagantly—
the best of everything, the highest honors—
Because he looked death in the face and didn't flinch,
because he embraced the company of the lowest.
He took on his own shoulders the sin of the many,
he took up the cause of all the black sheep.

Quote of the Day:

“Grace must find expression in life, otherwise it is not grace.”
-Karl Barth

Grace Lying in the Snow

Grace.

Living in broken world it feels like a cheap phrase.
It feels like I'm holding a mirror just to have selective vision.
It is the glue holding things together even when I've checked out.
Every word I speak can be proven false
as I hold tight and hope against hope
that every ounce of this is true.

Either the cross is everything or nothing
and my only hope is on this Nazarene.
Outcast and despised, a man of sorrows
who walked this path before me.

I speak of beauty but have never seen it,
I write of hope but have never felt it.
Every last expression of this soul
is lost in this empty religious display.
There is nothing in the manger right now
just as there is nothing in the tomb.

It is a poor man's show
and than we get it put on display
on the street corner
where everyone can see it.
The badge on my sleeve
and the cross around my throat
as I fumble for words
that will never come.

You ask for answers I cannot give,
for my soul is poised to beg in shame
as my mind is but the cornerstone
of this foolish pride.

I have nothing to give.
The only hope I have seen
remains diligently unseen
and the love I have flows
from the heart of the One holding this all.

Trite and vain,
meaningless I have tried
and all I can give are these hands
along with this shaking voice.

It's Christmas time
and Jesus I just wish we could stop the pain.
I'm sick of the fighting, the addictions
and beating ourselves into the ground.
The destitute hungry along with outcast dying of disease,
did you watch me past by the starving beggar
or the prostitute offering tricks for drugs?
Jesus did you see the pride in my heart
as I justify judging
as though Nietzsche was right and You died
just so I can be king?

The Truth is only You
and still I am looking and searching
hoping to find a way to validate my pride.
Words keep sticking in my throat
and I say I do not know
because the Truth terrifies me.

This time of year brings me so much terror
because it faces me to look into history
and see how true truth really is.
You will be You,
eternally now.
The more people try to persuade me otherwise
Your Love is all I can see.

The fire of my doubts will not cease
until I feel the arms of eternity around me
and the nail scarred hands wipe away my tears.

The fear in my soul
and the sin that is a disease
will one day be no more
and I will be freed to love
and love only like one touched by eternity can.