So...what now?
I'm busy building my tower to heaven,
casting stones and laying brick
just to feel my soul ebb away.

Sometimes...it might be best to just be forgotten for a while...let things slide out of sight, out of orbit...away, away, away...

Sent to the Dark

Sometimes I feel so stupid for believing.
It's like...how naive and stupid can I be?
I am seeing myself
reflected and refracted
broken apart
and having my soul deconstructed.

I want to nail this pain into the wall
put it on display
showing my shame and hate
just every ounce of myself
you never could know.

I feel so foolish
so stupid.
I wasn't just a child
but one following
hook, line and sinker.

More than just my head
I have a hole in my heart
pumping out life
and filling this suit of lies,
staining it red
with all my regret.

I keep asking for an end
for this soul
to be stripped
and torn from this decaying machine
but you have plans,
such unknowable
and pain giving plans.


Just another chance
another path
where will this go?
Does it matter?
How much does it matter?

Quote of the Day:

"The writer who emphasizes spiritual values is very likely to take the darkest view of all of what he sees in this country today. For him, the fact that we are the most powerful and wealthiest nation in the world doesn't mean a thing in any positive sense. The sharper the light of faith, the more glaring are apt to be the distortions the writer sees in the life around him... My own feeling is that writers who see by the light of their Christian faith will have, in these times, the sharpest eyes for the grotesque, for the perverse, and for the unacceptable... The novelist with Christian concerns will find in modern life distortions which are repugnant to him, and his problem will be to make these appear as distortions to an audience which is used to seeing them as natural."

-Flannery O'Connor

"How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls
Swimming in a fish bowl,
Year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have we found?
The same old fears.
Wish you were here."

We write lies in order to tell the truth.
We spin the webs of fictitious tales
to pierce your soul, mind and heart.

Quote of the Day:

"The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it."
-Flannery O'Connor

Now is a bad time to loose confidence my ability to write.
Much less act.
Need to memorize...re-memorize...recreate...re...something!

Aie!

Ack!

Stuff!

Oh dear...nausea...oh dear...

Finishing Last

Does it really matter?

I really do not like the choices I have to make sometimes.
Withdraw.

Perhaps the worst thing is that having to remove myself and not help hurts more than the physical pain ripping through my stomach right now.

If I don't pull back...and stop trying to help everyone with everything...they won't be able to learn...and I am doing nothing but trying to crucify myself in place of Christ.

I'm not a hero.
I am not a savior of anyone.
I am an organic machine bustling with a spirit, full of sin and strife; never knowing when the past is here and what it is I am just supposed to feel.


"Now this is who we are
I'll never know the answers
And I'll always wonder why
But You have let me start again
I'd rather be called weak
Than die thinking I was strong"

Everything...all of this is fading, passing by so quick...I hear a cry in the back of my mind...I just wish the vision of those last few breaths was not something I saw.

What can a sane mind say to that?
Inevitability?
Peace...even when I do not feel it.
Hope...everlasting in this night.
Love...I will never be alone, never again.

...so I feel really stupid in saying this...but I forgot how much I enjoy reading the Bible...I mean not just pleasure reading...but for my soul...there is this...this...intimacy that goes beyond the pages, beyond the historical reality to the infinite nature of a holy and powerful God that is holy and loves us enough to not break that reality of himself.

What makes a friend a friend, a friendship a friendship?

I am rather narcissistic, thank you very much.
On a good day I think I manage to recall that the world doesn't just revolve around me but that there are other people who live on this planet as well.
Occasionally I converse with them or at least sit with them at lunch in the cafeteria.

I have archives.
More archives then I ever knew about.
Emails.
Dear God at the sheer number of emails from when I first got my own personal computer back in 2004.

That has only been six years but it seems like an eternity.

What has happened since then?
I grew a couple of inches, lost a gallbladder and lot of stones, no more wisdom teeth, a couple of girlfriends disguised as leeches were burned off from where they had latched onto me, I lost my grandmother, lost the only dog I ever wanted to have as a pet, I got two BA's and almost a masters, started and quit seminary (although to be fair that was only a few months out of all of this)...God so much more.

Three novel manuscripts.

How many friendships?
Just going through Trillain...hundreds of screen names.
I don't even know the numbers I culled from Yahoo and Msn...plus the other half dozen screen names that I don't even remember the passwords from.

I don't even know why I am writing on here.
What does it matter?
So many emails, so many messages...so much of me bleeding my soul dry...for what?

I could be angry.
I could be really bitter about people who seem to just come and go, take what they need and then pop off but I've done the same thing without even meaning to...things are so royally screwed up with my health and state of mind that I honestly have trouble keeping track of the day I am in...much less whatever month or year it is.

Reading my rather cyclical writings...it is like too much sugar and I can feel it rotting my teeth.

I'm okay.
I am more okay now then I have ever been.
I am feeling just a bit more sick then ever before.
Maybe just a little more upset and sensitive to pain.
Could be I am just sick in the body or maybe sick in the mind.

I could say how much I hate you but what is there to be gained?
I could say I love you but wouldn't actions speak louder?
Do you even know if I am talking to you or do you think I may be talking to someone else with the veiled messages?

There is no code.
There is no hidden messages.
I am tired and really should not be trusted for anything that might be considered important.
I am working on a masters with the general label of religion when the only thing I remotely care about anymore is Jesus, drinking tea and excitement that a new Showbread album is coming out soon.

What is it going to matter if this is archived from now until the systems holding the internet up crashes and falls?
Why does it matter if I work hard to secure a future that isn't there?

I really don't know how much to even bother trusting people...everything is eventual, all the collapse, all the decay, the organic death.



Maybe that black space that is exactly three lines down will say something, speak to your soul...three is a strong and important number in Christianity.
Think of the possibilities.

The Trinity, three days, three nails...three whatever.

I am tired.
Worn out, stretched out thin and wishing I could retire.

I actually know the solution.
However I am not as adept as selective apathy as quite a few people I know.
Stupidly I will not put up a wall to keep people out.
They are eventually going to be the death of me because I am going to either run myself so thin or just keep working until I fall over.

But that is fine...maybe I'll just pass out and get a good nap.
That sounds nice at this point actually.
A nap.

So nice.

I received a fortune cookie which said "Others find your charm irresistible."

If you replaced "Others" with "Bacteria" then I think you might be on the right path.

Why I am NANOWRIMO'ing and You Should Too!

The temperature is falling, the leaves are turning golden yellow and I need to restock my supplies of cocoa.

There is an amazing spectacle, this magical experience, of epic proportions where the veil separating the worthy and unworthy is torn down...anything seems possible because when you are writing a novel no one can tell you what to do!

Yes, National Novel Writing Month is a mere twenty-seven days away and I am still frantically trying to catch up on homework while turning over ideas for this years book.

Some of you may be sitting at home right now, sipping on your chai latte thinking, "Gee Matthew, isn't it sort of stupid to write yet another manuscript, much less when you have dozens of things to write and the need to start finding a Masters thesis?

Why yes, for those unaware I am that insane.
This is the sort of insanity that comes when all the rules get thrown out the window, the Nazi Grammarians are tranquilized and stashed in a closet and my inner editor is given a copy of James Joyce's "Ulysses" and put up in a kennel for the month.

Why go through a process to put down another manuscript when I have three others that are in such horrid alarming states that I pray no living being reads it before I try to revise them?

It is a legitimate question to ask because I am already having to adjust the next few weeks so just I have things in order for me to slip off to novel land a few hours each day.

Without further ado here are some good reason why I and anyone who can string a sentence together should do NANOWRIMO:


1.For the first twenty-one years of my life (okay so maybe we can't count the first five years of my life) I have always been insanely interested in stories. There are several milestones in my life where I realized that the written word will always be my one and only true intellectual mistress.

It took me until I was twenty-one to fully realize I was in danger of becoming one of those incredibly disillusioned people that are "never weres", in the since they never took the time to write, they never took the time to read, they never took the risk of seeing if they were even capable of writing.

I can think of at least a dozen or so people in my life who should join me in this endeavor because if you do not try you will never succeed. How many English teachers/professors medicate themselves at pubs and go on about this great novel they were never able to write?

Do you know why they never wrote it?
Because they did not take the time!
National Novel Writing Month is the sort of excuse a person needs to say "Screw you self-consciousness! I don't like you and you made my high school years suck so I am not longer going to let you dictate to me who I am and will be!"


2.When you have a million things to do, adding one thing to the list isn't really all that bad.

The goal is to reach 50,000 words in thirty days, which comes out to being a mere 1600ish words a day. You still have to sacrifice free time in order to do this endeavor but what would you be doing? Watching bad reruns of "Seinfeld" and playing Farmvile?

Contrary to popular belief, novels (art in general really) do not pop out out of a parallel world where all the good stories live and Muse brings an artist their story to tell.

Writing a novel is hard but enjoyable work.
It makes your mind focus, bend, sweat and grow so that you can make dialogue and settings that are somewhat believable.
If you want to learn how to play an instrument, to bake a cake or make a guillotine in your backyard for reenacting the Reign of Terror, then you need practice.


3.Exuberant imperfection.
For some incredibly sick and twisted reason (The Fall?) people/me are ashamed of themselves, ashamed of what they like, ashamed to to think that they can do something artistic and enjoy it.

Why did finding joy from the arts become such a taboo?
Every time I try to work on a story outside of NANOWRIMO I always stop several pages in because I loose confidence, I begin to doubt everything and soon there is this fifty foot tall wall separating me from the story.

The only way I have found my way around this is by locking myself into a "write or die!" mode during November and although I have not been able to rewrite any of the first three manuscripts there ARE salvageable parts and after writing about 150,000(+) words of fiction you start to get the handle of what works and doesn't work.


4.Although I agree with Douglas' Adams sentiment about enjoying the "whooshing noise as a deadline flies overhead, one of the most important aspects of NANOWRIMO is that you have a limit to abide by. A time limit forces the brain to go into overdrive and although you end up with a lot of crap, it is intoxicating, beautiful crap that is YOURS.

It doesn't matter how many times I do it, I am never able to finish a project until the night before. There is something about the rush that brings excitement to life...and I just realized how I just described myself as a "Noveling Adrenaline Junkie"... >_< moving on.


5.Everyone has a story.
I will be the first to admit that I only have a rudimentary knowledge of how language works, the parts of speech and whatever a comma splice or whatever a gerund is but that doesn't stop me and should not stop you.

There are always people weeping about how Nanowrimo is destroying the English language, will cause an excessive amount of poorly written manuscripts but ultimately their opinion is just that, an opinion.

Until you let go of this need for "perfection" you will never hear the story in your head...but when you get to a point to where you can tune it out...and it is just you and story, you will be surprised at what you see and how perfectly made we all are to tell stories.

One of the people I miss the most is my grandmother and in the last couple of years before she passed away she mentioned knowing the entire history of Providence (the local church near our house) and those around it. When she passed she took with her a unique perspective that can never be given or know again.

You story may just be one to share with yourself and one or two loved ones...but ultimately there is this sort of intimacy that comes from giving of yourself to the story.


6.When you are jumping off a bridge it is best to bring several people along for mutual moral support and idea bouncing. I have only had limited experience with the idea of writing in a group where people encourage, give ideas, threaten to beat people if they leave or quit and overall the fact people bring baked goods, coffee and tea...but it is something awesome!


What more can I say?
I am the kind of person who loves school, loves learning, love reading and loves to write. There is the romanticist in me that hopes to one day be published, to take the literary world by storm and have enough money to build a Hobbit Hole themed house to live in...but ultimately I am writing for myself first and foremost, the rewrite is where the idea of trying to write to others comes in.

My goal with NANOWRIMO is the same with my poetry and essays...I want to capture a moment of time, something that is fleeting but should be preserved.
How that turns out is yet to be seen.


Oh...and as a bribe if anyone decides to join me and makes an account on their website and they hit 50k words then I'll bake you some brownies as a reward for doing something awesome. ^_^

All the nightmares my mind comes up with to prevent me from having a decent night sleep pales in comparison to the horrors that lurk about in common daylight.

Bah.

I take so many words to say even the most basic of things.

Bah.
Bleh.
Meh.
Bargh.

Oh well.

Always next time maybe...

"Head Down" - Nine Inch Nails

Without a doubt that has quickly become one of my favorite NIN songs.
It's almost like it is the idea of almost minimalistic industrial.
This surreal lost of identity in the growing crowds.

Such understated poetry with no resolutions...saying so much and so little at the same time.


"Hey you
What you running from?
All your hate
What you've become
Bet you didn't think
It would happen to you
All used up
Half way through

And this is not my face
And this is not my life
And there is not a single thing here
I can recognize
This is all a dream
And none of you are real
I'll give anything"

You know...it is so easy to lie to those who do not want the truth.
It is so simple.
Child's play.
Mostly, I think, because it is just that...the meandering thoughts of children.

It is so silly that so much of life is taking up by such a waste of time and effort.

There is beauty in being freed by the truth and no longer bound by false perceptions and fool's gold.

Words really only have as much meaning as you give them...and I guess this means they have none.

For now at least and into the indefinite future.

Medial Malaise Melody

"Who has believed our message?
To whom has the Lord revealed his powerful arm?
My servant grew up in the Lord’s presence like a tender green shoot,
like a root in dry ground.
There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance,
nothing to attract us to him.
He was despised and rejected—
a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.
We turned our backs on him and looked the other way.
He was despised, and we did not care.

Yet it was our weaknesses he carried;
it was our sorrows that weighed him down.
And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God,
a punishment for his own sins!
But he was pierced for our rebellion,
crushed for our sins.
He was beaten so we could be whole.
He was whipped so we could be healed.
All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.
We have left God’s paths to follow our own.
Yet the Lord laid on him
the sins of us all."
-Isaiah 53:1-6


Sometimes I forget who I am and where I am going.
One of the hardest things to do when you are lost in the woods is see the entire perspective, that old adage of "Not seeing the forest because of the trees"

For those who have or do go through chronic pain on a nearly daily basis you know what I mean. I wake up in the morning wondering if I am going to be sick and able to attend class or if things will be alright until I eat something.

Friday I found out the results of the biopsies from the tests were all negative. It is great that I am not suffering from some sort of cancer, Chron's disease, Lupus (although it is NEVER Lupus) or spontaneous human combustion. Even though it is none of those problems the fact that there IS no label or real way of expressing what is wrong with me.

For once the doctor I saw believed I was sick and in excruciating pain. However the best he could come up with is just my fibromyalgia is just amplifying what might otherwise be a mild case of IBS and pending check up visits with him I've sort of exhausted the avenues of medical science once again.

If nothing else at least my body is persist in staying sick.
If you gotta do something wrong, you might as well do it right, right?


I am not the sort of person who tries to super spiritualize every little thing in life but something as aggressive and life changing as perpetual sickness has to have some bearing in my life...in other words if I wasn't so sick and dealing with these problems I would not be who I am today.

That opens up a very interesting dimension to life.

For all rights and purposes my doctor was right in thinking I was crazy to continue school while being so sick, but honestly, what else can I do except try?
I would rather try and fail every single class this semester then cancel my classes and just lay in bed all day writing very bad poetry.

I don't want to sound like a martyr and I hate feeling like I may somehow be using my sickness to garner sympathy or support. There are people in this world who suffer much more than I do...in ways I guess that may be my point.

I have had a couple of rather amazing friends say to me to find a way to "give this disease back to God" a way to make something beautiful come out of something that is stupefyingly horrible.

I have a unique look at life because of being so sick.
I have seen too many hospitals, have had more blood taken and IV's started then I care to remember...but each one of those hospital visits is a part of the construction in making me the Matt Pike I was, I am and I will be.

There is something absolutely amazing with that passage from Isiah, it predicts that Jesus will be a "man of constant sorrows", one that is infinitely familiar with rejection, ridicule and hatred for daring to go to those that were deemed "dirty", "unclean" and not worthy of grace (not that any are but it seems the religious prig is always ready to point the finger) and even those who killed him.

What an insane Messiah, one who doesn't care about our idea of polite society and the sort of deity you can't simply say to hush and please stop talking about eating and drinking his blood and flesh.(John 6:47-55)

It's almost like because I am in this pain and have to make choices...every choice, every decision sort of has much grander and much lasting effects than if I was not in pain or so sick all the time.

I really do believe in being honest to God and there is nothing more asinine then pretending we are okay when we are quite clearly not. I try to lie and hide from people about how sick I can be...but why try to fool the one that put me together?

I care enough to voice my thoughts of doubt, of pain and just how life can be so insane...not just for me but the kind of world we live in where it seems we are always just a single heart beat away from immense pain.

And the resounding reply from above that I have heard of lately has been, "If you care so much, then do something about it."

Just like they were saying...take this pain and be honest, be candid, be yourself...ultimately show people the daily miracle of grace that makes life what it is.

Maybe that sounds too hokey or mystical...but what else can I do?
What else should I do?
People (read that as I) are always happy to point out how bad things are, how worse life is getting...but few are willing to actually stand there and do something lasting, effective...something beyond meetings and strategies.

The past few years have been what I would consider the wanderings in the wilderness. I still do not see where I am going...but no matter how dark the path seems there have been an infinite number of blessings and people to prop me up and help me.

I think the most perplexing part is that those who do not share my convictions and beliefs have been some of my biggest supporters during this time. Life is too great and too terribly beautiful to ever be able to give proper thanks to you all.

Even in my most nihilistic moments...I think I will be able to look back and see the grace that helped me make it here, that it was all worth it...and I will only be able to mumble a very small thanks and finally be Home.

Proverbs 3

"Do not withhold good from those who deserve it
when it’s in your power to help them.
If you can help your neighbor now, don’t say,
“Come back tomorrow, and then I’ll help you.”

Don’t plot harm against your neighbor,
for those who live nearby trust you.
Don’t pick a fight without reason,
when no one has done you harm.

Don’t envy violent people
or copy their ways.
Such wicked people are detestable to the Lord,
but he offers his friendship to the godly."
-Proverbs 3:27-32

God you confuse me and I rarely understand what is going on.
However as I have been force to admit in recent memory is that love doesn't require understanding.

Being in pain and sick so often...I guess you get a little perspective of what matters because who knows what tomorrow may bring, assuming there is even one?

What good does being mad accomplish?
What can my rage do?
The only thing positive that can come out of it...comes from you, letting you mold my actions and my intentions into something...more, more, more.

Why do I breath?
Live?
Strive beyond this moment for something else?
Something more?
What am I living for?

How much of life is open to making mistakes, walking and crossing over, tumbling, falling and savoring?

Everything is...everything in its own way...but...there is so much doubt and fear for one I never seem to shut up complaining to.

Oie.

Peace, hope and love...so far away, so far from my understanding...but grace...pure grace. God's grace...my comfort, my salvation, my rock...my Love.

Quote of the Day:

"Maybe there is a touch of insanity to think you or I could really make a difference, knowing who we are, that we could somehow change the course of history. If it's normal to wake up in the morning and just try to make it through the day, then I vote for abnormality. I choose insanity."
-Erwin Raphael McManus

Oh dear Father, why why why did I eat dinner?

>_< blaarghsss....

"Tell me is something eluding you, sunshine?
Is this not what you expected to see?
If you wanna find out what's behind these cold eyes
You'll just have to claw your way through this disguise."

Another day of pain and medication.
I keep loosing track of time.
Up is down, left is right and my heart's rhyme is off tempo.

Sometimes I wonder where I am, where I am going and if I have already arrived.

I really do not like how the medication makes me feel...but sometimes it makes the pain my body is in decrease.

Sometimes it feels like I have just been in pain my entire life and that is all there is or will ever be.

My Savior, my Love, my Lord, my Daddy, my King, my Maker...all of these you are...please, please heal me.
Reduce or remove the pain...

I know I ask in vain because I at least know...it is for a reason.
The reason would not make sense to me and I would never be brave enough to have picked this road on my own.

But here stand, You and I.
Forever entwined and even when I falter and fail, you love me all the same.