What lies ahead

Fog
Wispy billows of gray
leave the crags and the pitfalls ahead undiscerned
A journey where the end may not be reached

Crunch
Shifting weight, he prepares
for the first of the numerous strides out ahead
where each courageous step could be the last.

Chilled
by the wind's eerie kiss
a caress he adores and desires to be gone
He wipes his face and eyes what lies ahead

Peaked
Each new sense he perceives
meets a heightened defense, strong in strike and retreat
With meerkat's gait and lion's stride he walks

Keen
In obsidian eyes
lies the cool yet disheartening hue of the light
upon which he fixates steel pupils' gaze.

Lost
to the cultural norm,
Truth to self supercedes the alignment to all
the world would ask he be to gain all the world

Crushed
Heart's defenses left unmanned
for the sake of congruence to cultural norm
now crying for a soul with which to hurt.

Death
It emposes its will
on the human embodiment through which it walks:
a girl forgetting how - and why - to hope.

Stout
Like an oak tall in years
whose appearance but overlays dead, rotting bark;
within the brewing storm his downfall comes.

Dazed
The kaleidoscope eyes
dazzle all they entrance with a deep lust for more
yet deeply long for worth half what she seems.

Keen
Deep obsidian eyes
bear the calm and empowering hue of the light
which lack of compromise permit his gain.
Now,
with discernment these eyes
see the world for its tears behind half-hearted masks,
and decodes said "appeal" as despair's haunted cries.





I'm not really sure where to go with this... it was more an idea for meter than anything else, a blend of whatever you call that tertiary meter (--X--X) and iambic pentameter, but it started to take on a life of its own with a thousand ways it could blossom and a million lessons it could resolve. *shrugs* Maybe I'll come back to it when I know more of where to go with it, if anywhere further; it could be I keep feeling -- as now -- like this is the place to end it, leaving the heart thoughtful and questioning of the true message (which of course would be decided upon based upon the state of the heart deciding, something I love doing with works from time to time).

The end.?!

crazy

You know it's a crazily busy season when the kid who's been blogging for almost 6 years hasn't written in forever...

There has been so much going on in life of late that I can't really encompass it, and now as I sit here and think about it, those of you who have been around know about it and you're the only ones who read this currently. So... end post. :P

Love

Given the season, I figure this is about the most fitting time to write about this there could ever be; while normally I don't write notes on here, this is something I want everyone to hear.

I've thought & prayed about love throughout this week quite a bit and I feel like things have all boiled down to one simplistic statement of reality: Love is what it's all about.

Love is the reason for life; in its presence we are grown and built up, and in its absence we are torn apart. We were made for love; everything from the anatomy we were all born with to the mentalities and feelings we all bear suggests it, and regardless of whether or not someone is religious they still feel the longing for love. Love is what binds acquaintances together into friends, relatives into family, neighbors into community; it is what makes forgiveness possible, the core within us which calls forth trust and integrity, and the emotion that people parallel to oxygen -- you never realize how desperately you need it until you are without it.

Even beyond that, just like the presence of love defines us and molds us, the absence of love inflicts wounds upon us which tear us down. Wounds we don't talk about, that we can't believe will heal are based out of love's absence (something I've learned well over the years), wounds like self-doubt and insecurity, questions about our image or our worth, and ultimately even self-hatred. Time spent in the absence of a beloved opens the door for doubt and despair to attack the relationship in our minds, to try and squeeze between the floorboards of social intimacy and break down the walls of emotional companionship time together built up. Not loving to hope leads to depression. Not loving our lives destroys contentment and slowly opens the door for things that destroy our friendships: jealousy, greed, lust and the like.

It keeps going.

Looking at love in this light, you could ultimately conclude that love completely defines everything we are or are not.

What determines your personality and your passion? The things you love to do. What we choose to like defines our personality, but on a far greater spectrum, what we choose to LOVE sets up the hierarchy within our hearts of what we will give up for what else, the things we deem worthy of sacrifice or surrender for the sake of something loved in a greater regard; thereby, love chooses the things we allow to govern our lives and, ultimately, it determines what we submit ourselves to or raise up in opposition to.

The people we choose to love are the people we spend the majority of our social time with, pouring into their lives and they into ours. The people who we bare our souls to, who we speak to of our loftiest dreams and darkest hours are the people who are so emotionally intimate with us that we know are trustworthy in counsel and in relationship. Why? Love. The person you spend your life with in marriage is the one who you align to the best, who you trust to help raise your children, who knows from the look in your eye and the sound of your voice how to love you best in any given situation, on any given day. Why? How? Love.

Love is the answer, the source, the meaning, the means, and the resolution; love is what we live pursuing and die fighting for. In its perfection of depth and duration, "love never fails", as Paul once wrote, and Tao Te Ching said, "Love, perfected, has no climax." Love inspires us to push our limits and expand our abilities, to pursue passions -- and people -- and to reach for the stars with our arms wrapped around one another. Love is what we all need more than oxygen, what we crave more than food, what we wake up hoping for and fall asleep content within.

With that in mind... Why hide it? Why does love has to be something taboo to talk about, culturally awkward to discuss? If love is indeed the greatest thing ever -- in a manner of speaking, the ONLY thing -- why should we curb the love that defines us? If sisters hug in public, are they suddenly having an affair? If a guy is having a rough week and one of his buds pulls him close in his arms for a while as he cries, are they friends who aren't scared of loving one another or are they secretly homosexual? Why is it simple to say, "Hi, Mom!" on national TV and yet so difficult to say, "I love you, Mom,", during a phone call in your room with three friends nearby?

... and it keeps going. Can we not trust the one we love enough to know they will be true to us when they're not around? On the converse end, can our love not give enough honor to that intimate companion to remain true to them and them alone when we're away? Can we not even love the world around us enough to pour out into it from time to time in the simplest of acts? Shouldn't we love ourselves boldly enough to believe we have worth, as well as humbly enough to keep that self image in check, keeping vanity and selfish pride at bay for the sake of the other people we love?

I suppose that is my perception of love. This is love, love that should be lived for 24 hours a day and celebrated 500 days out of every year, love that should be dreamed about and fought for, love that inspires sacrifice and whose sacrifices inspire. This is the love that Valentine's Day should be about: not just love between couples and "items", but love as a whole, love between companions and families just as much as between enemies, love for God that a nation's creation, love which raises us up to stand on mountains and walk on stormy seas, consoles us when lifes most trying times come crashing down, rallies to us in our hour of direst need, cranks up the volume on our car stereos, and soothes out the anxieties life gives us with soft fingers through your hair and softer whispers in your ears.

Patient love, kind love, selfless love that won't brag, demean me, or proudly look down on me, love with patience and self-sacrifice, love that protects, trusts, hopes, perserveres... That kind of love never fails, and that kind of love is worth paying any and every price for. That love one would walk any distance to see and fight every army on the face of the earth to obtain. Love like that is worth chasing like someone who would climb Mt. Everest to get closer in stretching for the Sun; it is worth vastly more than the effort spent reaching to even touch love like that, more than the humbling from surrendering everything one can surrender to feel but a brush of it, more than the strain in hoping through every storm for the chance of but seeing it one more time.

That kind of love is worth dying for, not to mention living for... and it was given to us all. A God who himself is defined by, "God is love", decided that love was worth dying for so we could live with it. (1 John 4:16, John 3:16.)

Let that be my Valentine. I close with the elegant words Paul once wrote: "...And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." (Ephesians 3:17-19)

Happy Valentine's Day, with love for you all.

dancing the fine line

For the sake of the imminent questions:

1) Yes, I'm cooking at formal Saturday. Which means...
2) In order to avoid being viciously murdered by some combination of past-and-present WF'ers, yes, I will be at the formal Saturday.

...which probably means Sunday I will be gone all day at my parents' house so I can do the work on my car I really need to get it fixed (5 of 'em).

Upon Reflecting

I just reread one of my "ramble" pieces from July 7th, 2005... the night I finally broke... I couldn't even believe the magnitude of how far I have come. My eyes teared up, and after a few minutes of dumbfounded, inward numbness and sitting absolutely speechless in front of a blank Notepad screen, this finally came out.

---

i want to sing, but songs are somber tragedy in comparison with the joy i have to express
i want to scream but my diaphragm is too small to yell for the world
i want to dance, but athletic feet would not be quick enough
i want to laugh, but no tears of joy could embellish it all

i want to remember, but your love has changed me so much that i've forgotten how deep the hole was

i want to praise, but my words are so fruitless compared to your works
i want to exalt, but i am too low to even reach you, much less lift
i want to proclaim, though my soul is already hoarse
i want to spread, even if i am spread thin

i want to give what i have received, but your gift is beyond anything i have to offer back

i want to cry, but a tear is too brittle a vessel for joy
i want to moan, but even a whisper should not be uttered before you
i want to humble myself, but no depth is low enough
i want to reduce myself, but nothing could make me smaller in comparison nor in meaning to you

i want to lay as though dead before you, but my heart would still be beating with yours

i want to stop wanting anything but you.
i need to stop needing anything but you.
i long to long only for you.
i seek to seek only for you.

i die to myself just for a chance to live in you.
i cry out to beg for even your whispers.
i dig myself a hole to lay low within before you.
i live alone that i may deeper impress in you.

before i knew the depths of my desperation, you were tunneling to cut me off.
before i knew my subconscious numbness, you were operating.
before i knew how weary i was, you were cradling me.
before i knew i wanted to die, you knew how i wanted to live.
before i knew my purpose, you knew your will for me.
before i knew i could hope again, you had plans beyond what i feared to hope for again.
before i knew how to heal, you were cutting away.
before i knew that i could ever trust again, you established my need to.

before i knew i could ever be different, you knew i would never be the same.

and now
i know enough to know that i am not enough,
that you alone are enough,
that you are more than enough...
and after i know... i know not how to thank you enough.

so, here is all i can give: my life; though it is not enough, may it please you.

What is intimacy?

Latest piece. Of one of the many lessons I have been (and still am being) taught over the '06-07 school year. ...I'm going to bed now that I finally feel tired. o_O

In tender arms' caress I long to lie;
from rocky crags and narrow climbs He calls.
The body longs to soothe a lover's cries;
the soul shuts chapel doors and there withdraws.

The inner turmoil spawned by misdefined
beliefs of what i name "intimacy"-
press into her with bodies close, entwined,
or hug His bloodied shell at Calvary?

Longevity upholds my heart's desires,
yet faith accepts His will means mine suppressed;
My civil war with ancient words expires:
"He must become far greater, I far less."

"Old me" would cling to all that could have been;
"new me" will anchor in the things unseen.

A tough word pierces deepest

I felt like I received a great (though tough) word today and wanted to pass it on...

I've really been struggling of late to keep close to God, and I've readily noticed that I've lost much of even the memories: laying on the chapel's floor completely content knowing I'm in His presence, the sense of joy and empowerment within me as I wandered around campus on the day following an awesome night of group prayer, the enjoyment of devotionals... Of late it has really all been a huge burden for me rather than something I've enjoyed, and I haven't adjusted well to that at all, which has mostly alienated me from Him in terms of one-on-one time. I've been a part of some awesome doing stuff already this break, events and lives I know He has been present amidst (heavily, at that) through my life and my love for people, but I feel like the spiritual half of things - the sensing, if you will - has been absent, and that's frustrating me as I continue to dig through tough questions and the further "working out of salvation with fear and trembling". I guess the best way to say it is that I've stumbled in the race, but I'm not rebounding quickly because it is a stumble at mile 13 rather than a quick save 13 feet out of the gate.

I was asking God half-heartedly -- always a stupid idea -- why He hasn't answered my prayers to restore the sense of urgency to me the way I had it before, though I realized fully even as I asked that I needed to plug back in to give Him the connection to pour His power through; before I could bite back the question, He replied with bold, tough love: "I could lay you on the floor with a sense of urgency so heavy you couldn't move... but then where would choice be?"

I wanted to share that word with everyone to carry with them for the holidays, to impress on you what was given to me since I feel in my heart that a lot of us are in the same place: struggling to neither regress into the old nor remain stagnant and lose heart, but to somehow find it within us to press ahead even in this time of rest and -- for many of us -- frustrating reunions, of all forms. We could have been given the sense of urgency, but then we wouldn't be choosing Him. We could be forced to love her or serve him or help her or avoid that or ____... but then would it wouldn't be chosen, and thus we would have no capacity for Christ's love since we wouldn't have the capacity to love Christ in the absence of the ability to make choices and actively live lives that honor Christ.

Take that with you. He probably won't honor the requests to make us do something, but we all know He will empower us to choose to do something and to work it through, by His power, in His will, for His glory.



"...there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. ...For when I am weak, then I am strong." --2 Cor. 12:7-10
"In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. ...And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose... No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us!" --Rom. 8:26,28,37
"...being confident in this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." ---Phil. 1:6
"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." ---Jam. 1:2-4

Merry Christmas... With love.