Lost in Transition

What lies ahead

2007-03-15T21:44:00.000-05:00

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

2007-03-08T09:49:00.000-05:00

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

2007-02-16T22:30:00.001-05:00

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

2007-01-24T14:45:00.000-05:00

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

2007-01-06T03:31:00.000-05:00

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?

2007-01-02T07:07:00.000-05:00

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

2006-12-22T22:41:00.000-05:00

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.

"In those days..."

2006-12-06T12:41:00.000-05:00

God's Spirit is falling with an unbelievably, undeniably heavy impact here at UK... and it's both thrilling and terrifying. Multiple miracles have occurred in the past week here, with powerful sessions of prayer and occurring regularly and tough spiritual warfare being fought here. The times that are spent elsewhere just pale in comparison with the sheer ecstasy we have received at times from being absolutely drunk on the Spirit of God, and I can't remotely put words to the experience except to say that it is clearly God. That little chapel in our basement is becoming a sanctuary of God, a holy place consecrated for the work He is doing here, and I'm thrilled to see what He has in store next.

The thing that makes this movement the most beautiful of all -- for me -- is quite contrary to this massive "signs and wonders" outpouring of His Spirit; the contentment and absolute simplicity of everything when I'm in His presence is what I look forward to now. I can't even describe the simplicity of it; I won't even bother trying to explain something that far over my head. There is some indescribable sentiment of absolute peace that I'm working to learn to carry out with me, and in the aftermath of some of the times we've had in the prayer room I've spent the next few days laughing like an idiot walking down the street any time the memory returns to me of what I witnessed... was a part of... the sounds and sentiments, the love and laughter and absolutely awe-inspiring nature of it. It's... amazing. I'm finally coming into full understanding of the personal relationship aspect in communion with the corporate prayer side of things, and I look forward to all the time I can devote there. It's like... No, nothing is like it. I won't even bother trying, much less arguing its reality. Pretty much every sign and wonder that is in the Bible at any point has occurred in that room now, save someone being raised from the dead (and obviously what Christ did that none can parallel and all desperately need), but amazingly and mind-numbingly enough the signs and wonders all pale before the sheer... splendor?... of the feeling (not emotion, very different) of being in His presence. It's stunning.

I have a lot of tough questions that are burdening my heart right now, however, and they are things that I have to work through and pray through, to sort out within me before I act on them, so please continue to pray for me and please respect me if I ask something of you (or ask you to withhold something)... since I honestly do have my reasons.

Love for you all.

Sorry for Santa!!

2006-12-01T01:56:00.000-05:00

From Facebook's group "Mechanical Engineers do it with less stress and strain"

Christmas in an Engineer's Mind

There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in the world. However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist (except maybe in Japan) religions, this reduces the workload for Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378 million (according to the population reference bureau). At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming there is at least one good child in each. Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 967.7 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with a good child, Santa has around 1/1000 th of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stocking, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh and get onto the next house.

Assuming that each of these 108 million stops is evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false, but will accept for the purposes of our calculations), we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom stops or breaks. This means Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second -- 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour.

The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized LEGO set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousands tons, not counting Santa himself. On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that the "flying" reindeer can pull 10 times he normal amount, the job can't be done with eight or even nine of them---Santa would need 360,000 of them. This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch).

600,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft reentering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second each. In short, they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team would be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip.

Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 m.p.s. in .001 seconds, would be subjected to acceleration forces of 17,000 g's. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering blob of pink goo. Therefore, if Santa did exist, he's dead now.

Merry Christmas.

The Price of Gasoline

2006-11-29T16:32:00.000-05:00

I really covet your prayers right now.

I love you guys and I refuse to stop giving into your lives every drop that I have, and that will not change until I literally fall and cannot rise; moreso, I know the work that has been appointed here for me -- socially, spiritually, and scholarly(?) -- and I refuse to cave in on it or stand down from the load... but I feel like I won't have a choice much longer. Which is a lie, an attacking lie, so lets strike that statement from the record. I know God will be enough for what He needs me to do... I just need to trust that and let Him be it.

I guess I just miss my friends, and I miss having room to breathe for more than a day or two at a time... but that isn't mine to miss; that's selfishness desiring what has not been given to me, so lets' strike that one off too.

Just pray for me. I love you guys & I have to admit that I miss our quality time together, but it isn't time for that yet I suppose, and I'll just need to keep pushing and keep pouring out into the people around me I've been given to reach and asking God to keep the blood flowing down over me in the meantime.

new piece

2006-11-22T01:47:00.000-05:00

In shades of mind a stiff mahogany
Lies still while floating by the zen and kin;
A linen shroud encompasses the strides
Which toss about forgiveness of his sins
Embodied by the solemn amulet
Which 'cross his chest hangs heavily from chains.
So casual the air of frankincense
And natron that the lingering remains
Weave through the crowds sustaining innocense
Without the empathetic sensing pain,
A craft so masterful that through the blur
Of mixed desire and myrrh a jaded smile
Reluctantly breaks pasty lips in two.
The two-edged sword needs not a lengthy while
To bring regression into deep remorse
As those once nearer than appendages
Pass by without a word along their course.
Within is born a fresh new hemorrhage
Which will be borne 'til death by echoes chilled
Since pulse's maker is all that remains
In space the Maker sculpted, hollowed, filled.
The silk millstone covered in hieroglyphs
And high designers' styled insignias
Will serve to layer his purgatorial riff
Until his spiritual insomnia
Is bought conclusion.

...Whispers stab the ears:
"Now hear it?--yes, I hear it, and have heard...
Said I not that my senses were acute?...
Have I not heard the footsteps on the stair?"
Farewell! The strength is lacked to even scoff
At those who would but gossip and not aid;
Such are the cornerstone of his abyss;
Such work Capel's momument's groundwork laid.
They are not heeded; all of hell is bent,
Thought after thought, upon the noblest word:
Apothecary, whose elixirs heal
All wounds born by the living dead.

Concerned a solitary messenger breaks past
Cerberus' guard to warm the heart of stone--
Embrace... a soft, infrequent gift, fights hard
To bring the warmth of flesh to haunted bones.
Within a hearth ignites yet will not burn
For great durations without fuel to raise
The temperature in Cocytus, a tomb
Of ice and deep reluctance tough to raze
With but one lover's candle; still, the arms
Pull hearts as close as possible to spread
The hope of love setting ablaze new life
Down to the heart from cage within stilled's head.

In greatest triumph -- and, too, irony --
A gentle tear which wets the lover's face
Sparks and ignites cleansing, consuming fire
Which grows with elongation of embrace.
Suddenly, hell-dried ducts rebuke natron
And restorative heat thaws out the cheek
As heart-to-heart convection waves spread out
To give the living dead a droplet's leak;
Weak at the knees, the coffin of the mind
Disintegrates and sinks into the arms
Of messenger and lover who intwines
Hair through the fingers, cradling in their arms.
"Methinks I see thee, now thou art below,
As one dead in the bottom of a tomb:
Either my eyesight fails, or thou look'st pale.
Come, love, speak up before my love's entombed."
The spirit quivers as the absent lungs
Somehow reanimate to draw forth breath
From exhales and from moisture passed with brush
Of holy pilgrim's lips on those of Death.

"I had despaired of life itself," comes slow
The hesitant, embattered one's reply;
Far more necesitates conveyance yet
The resolution lies within their eyes.
"I had forgotten what it was to love
And be loved in return; the sense was dead."
A sorrowed but relieved expression nods,
Defers from words to soothing arms instead.
whispers recall both warmth and love within
The thoughts and deep emotions they convey
Into the spirit through the ear canals;
"My love for you remains, now and always."

A slow, redemptive purge must now ensue
To be the deep restoring force it must,
Yet in these arms... this love... the hopes are true:
Here is a love forever here to trust.

Once armed with this and with the crucifix
Atop a leather sheath forever borne,
The born again finds freedom in a cross
And life through death restores love once forlorn.

The dead would die for just one day to live
And living dead live on but wait to die;
Death shows the "living large" they've never lived,
But dead to self find life through crucified.

Prerequisites for friendship

2006-11-07T17:43:00.000-05:00

*authors note* I wrote this just now for a friend (I hope she's well at its reception) and realized that it may do several of my friends good to hear given the place where people are at... so, here's to you.

You don't "have" to be anything to be my friend; who you are makes you such if you want it.

You don't have to be able to explain things adequately; just venting to get the general idea out is more than enough, because it means you trust someone enough to let them love you for all of you. Which I do.

You don't have to be perfect to be loved.
You don't have to be flawless to be pretty.
You don't have to be proven worthy in someone's eyes to have worth.
You don't have to be awesome at everything to be awesome at something,
and you don't have to be awesome at anything to be awesome to a good friend.
You don't need to prove, be, show, achieve, appear, display, convey, or master anything...

The only thing a good friend asks is that you are fully you so they can love you for it.

There's no "you must be this high to ride the friendship coaster" sign.
No bouncers are at the door to a good friend's heart.
No one's marking your palm at the advice bar to limit your number of visits.
No toll booth is charging the price of admission at the doormat.
No past experience devalues your stock or depreciates the love for you.

...the only chains a good friend gives a damn about are the ones they use to keep you from getting away, called "arms".

...just so they stop demanding a post.

2006-10-31T13:23:00.000-05:00

When treading through the misted mountain path
and chilling dampness pierces to the bone
the simple thought of future past this wrath
of mountains' interaction is unknown.

The mental process slows until the cease;
cognitive capability concludes
as spiritual embodiment's released
to let a cleansing spirit come intrude.

The burning of this inner work makes pale
the damp, oppressive fog in which he treads,
and inner storms surpass the blustry gale
as muscles spent are told, "Press on ahead."

The wearied mind entreats an argument
between the scene and unseen which he hopes
will find a denouement of hope unspent
which gives him second wind and way to cope.

What is a "firm" foundation on high seas?
What is a "place of peace" within a storm?
Where does one seek to find love without cease
when seldom is there place to just keep warm?

He sauters sweaty packstraps to his chest
to trap what little warmth has lingered still;
his eyes begin to tear, yet he is blessed
so long as still within he bears the will.

How can one mark the twain amidst the waves?
(The questions batter on within his mind.)
Is there a mighty force enough to save
from questions of the self which will not end?

What parts of self can one entrust as true
when everything is fluid, endless change?
What sentiments are real and -- harsher -- who
will love in purity and not estrange?

Why -- Footsteps stumble, hands fly out for holds
and fingers sink length deep in muddied ooze
to keep his face from battering 'gainst slick rocks
which nearly cut both mind and spirit loose.

He lingers for a moment, worn and spent,
and seeks the will to press on once again;
his gaze goes heavenward and sees but fog,
yet trusts the spirit still encouraged within.

With mud-filled scrapes and face bathed by the blend
of tears and fog's chilled condensation drops
he empathizes Atlas as he bends
yet... without breaking stands... breathes... heads for the top.

When weakness can become the greatest strength
and physical surrender to the will
comes at long last through painful trials of length
which once would have undone and heartbeat stilled...
within this instance is his true strength gauged.
Not of the flesh, but metaphysical
is his unconquerable stronghold which raged
amidst the storms to storm through cynical
and wearied arguments to cease, to quit,
by pressing on and crying to that which saves
to come and intervene, acquit the lies
within his mind and lift from wearied grave.

He knows not love, yet trusts he will at sight;
he cannot rest yet rests in rest unseen.
He knows not how to trust, yet trusts in blight
of blindness, trusting all in faith... in will.
He fears demise no more; already dead
his body is surrendered to the flames
so that his greater strength forges ahead,
unsinged by the flames... in raging waters, stilled.

Should e'er he find the top now matters not
for he has found in trek through mountainpass
something they cannot take he never thought
was there for wearied travelers to grasp.

Many more falters will of course be found;
many more wounds of course will be endured,
yet he has seen where love and trust abound
is in the trial; in this, he rests assured.

...man, that felt fantastic to finally write again.

Seeking the Cornerstone

2006-10-11T16:44:00.000-05:00

Before monsoon season arrives,
The fisherman rises with the sun
A soft ray of light falling
Through the "window" -- a carefully placed absence in the wall
His wife's soft arm across his chest he gently lays aside
Kissing her forehead softly as she smiles
Living in a dream, unable to wake... not wanting to wake...
He dons the belt of his trade and the trade of his fathers
Barefooted strides on scented hardwood
Smiling to tell the sun good morning
Thankful for the cool ticklings of the sand
Ever-admiring of the majestic watercolor skyline

His skiff awaits and the sea calls him home

---

How do you build amidst the storms of life? It's a simplicity -- and yet a great complexity -- to live your life believing in faith for the best while preparing for the worst in discernment and administration. To plan for the future is something which requires nothing but the greatest of concern for everything; when one boldly envisions the desired outcome, the means and the necessities present themselves clearly amidst planning. However... to build amidst the storms... to raise your tents in the middle of thundersnow on the side of the Himalayas... to casually seek a deepening in your relationships as the Apocolypse falls on the Earth... to begin challenging the newest life inside of you to stand up as a weathered, experienced set of skills when the old is still bleeding on the spiritual battlefield you are crossing... Such is a vastly different matter.

My world is forever changing. I've known -- and embraced, in as much as I can -- this truth for much of the last 18 months of my life, but the journey is now rounding completely new bends, passing through unforseen storms and blessings, facing challenges in a new arena whose translatable magnitudes are far greater than many of the cathartic experiences to-date... There is no definition of "safe" anymore, nor any understanding of "comfort zone".

To regress into the old is to damn all that God is and all His amazing, saving power; it is to reject every scrap of unjustifiable mercy and pour contempt over his (fortunately) never-ending forgiveness and boundless love. Over the top of that (if anything could be such), it is to restore the power to the depression and emptiness which once held such a tight rein upon my heart, tainting my life. I refuse to go there, and I have many times since spoken the blood of Christ over that part of my life, reminding myself that it is dead and not to return; such is still how I feel, and I despise even the thought of spending a moment of my life within those traps ever again.

To remain where I am is to neglect the voice in my heart which tells me great things are on the horizon and to deny God the right to utilize me as He wills in the days ahead in order that His kingdom truly does come, whether to this campus, my dorm, my workplace, my future household, or anything else. I know that God is calling me to abide in Him that He may do great things through my life, and I wish to heed and obey that calling, though I seldom have the understanding of what that implies in a moment-to-moment basis; all I can do is pray and press into God, allowing Him -- with fear and trembling -- to move in and through me, as well as those around me.

So I must press ahead... As blind as that path is, there is no other way, no other choice that is justifiable given the spiritual outpouring God has baptized me with to bring me through the many changes and healings He has already done (and the feeling that there is far more yet to do).

I think the problem for me is fear. In the same instant where I long to be the "safe place" -- a man of strength and integrity, a moral support to all my brothers and sisters, a confider to share the burdens with, and an example to all of the change which God's almighty Spirit can work -- I fear failing those I have been given to watch over and feel concern over the potential for a failure in my walk of purity bringing pain to those around me. I reject the idea that I am either expected or required to be perfect -- something which is immediately clear to me given how unbelievably torn apart I was before the work of Christ began -- and yet I feel called to a higher standard than simply living life out; there is a burden for the many around me, the lost as well as my brothers and sisters in Christ, which I feel the necessity to bear in intercession, in counsel, and in simply living life out together in love and prayer. I feel that our time spent together should be in unceasing tears and upon calloused knees as well as in side-splitting laughter and warm embraces where spirits say hello with outstretched physical arms. It is a great calling, I believe, to be any sort of advisor, counselor, or teacher... but it is a fulfilling calling to be a friend who has the joy of picking up the phone at 3 a.m. and saying that yes, sister, I will be coming right down to help, or to be the brother who stops his report at midnight each night to go to the mat with my brother in prayer.

I have never had a time in my life where I have seen God moving as mightily and in as widespread a nature as He is now, and the excitement in my heart occasionally leaves me with no choice but to smile and laugh like a child walking to and from class. On the other hand... I know that my part in this will be increasing and that the storm is coming, and I have little if any time to build in preparation, so the entirety of this will have to be on God, a complete leap.

I have to take heart and to have faith; I told someone just the other night, "See, that's what faith really is: it's leaping so far out there that if God doesn't catch you, you're completely lost." You don't hangglide off a cliff by taking a step and falling; you back up, say your prayers, and charge at it with a cry of giddyness and terror, sprinting and clutching to your "wings" as the ground ceases to exist, believing desperately that you will fly.

...Fortunately for me, I've had dreams of flying ever since I was a child, and not with wings or a plane. :-)

Pray for me in the days ahead to be protected and quicker to sink to my knees than to draw my sword; pray for me to be the unfamiliar man of solitary words before being the man of action I already am. Pray for me to feel God all around me in a tangible, lasting way and keep me especially accountable in these times to have a daily devotional. I pray for the discernment to know what is necessary and the faith to act on it, believing to see God's hand move. (I would ask for courage, but courage isn't really a Biblical emotion... Courage implies at least a partial disbelief or uncertainty in the powers that be delivering the desired outcome yet leaping headlong into the battle nonetheless; faith is stating that without God's falling like fire I am toast, yet if His fire falls and consumes me there is nothing which will touch me and no hair on my head which will even smell of smoke.)

And as always... I pray for my brothers and sisters in Christ; not only do I pray earnestly for "her", wherever and whoever she is, known or unknown, but I lift up those of you around me in prayer, believing that God will begin to -- or continue to -- work in all of your lives in powerful ways.

...I love that I have friends I can share this with. I am humbled that God would give me such friends, much less supernaturally sparing my life and powerfully healing and transforming my heart the many times He has so far.

I can't wait to see someone engulfed in flames who does not burn.
I look forward to the next time God uses me in someone else's storm.
I love that my greatest strength is in weakness.

...I need to stop rambling when the point of my heart is already expressed. :-)

I'm doing a chain post?!? What?!?

2006-09-27T15:19:00.000-05:00

Yeah... I normally don't do these, but I really liked the idea with this one. "INSTRUCTIONS: Write ten statements, intended to different people; never tell which one is to who... Make them things you've always wanted to tell people." So...

1.) The time of camaraderie is over. I love the time we've spent arm-in-arm through the growth and change we've both faced, and seeing your life begin to turn-about has been amazing, but I can only believe that my time in your life -- and yours in mine -- has drawn to a close. I look forward to seeing you again down the road and seeing what God has done in you then... but knowing how far away that is, I suppose the due reply is farewell, Godbless, and a reminder: hold fast to the course you have been brought to, or else you risk falling back in.

2.) How am I supposed to tell you I don't love you without you thinking I hate you? You are amazing, growing, changing... but not yet into prime, and the years immediately ahead need to be God's and God's alone for you. That, in truth, is the greatest expression of love and respect I can show for you, and I hope you understand that I say that as a loving brother who hopes he can remain that way.

3.) You will not last; your time draws to a close even now as you boast of your invulnerability, and darkness passes over the future your current course guides you into. Please... for your own sake, grow up, own up, and save yourself from a downfall neither you nor I desire for you to go through.

4.) I still pray for you from time to time. You would not hear, but I pray the truth becomes deafening; you would not see, but I know that time will blind your eyes with mud which only Christ can clear away in restoration. You will reject, rebuke, rebel, withdraw, withhold, and eventually break... and I pray that amidst that brokennes you find what I found in my own state of brokenness: repentance and complete healing. May the day hurry to when your heart is transformed, that your new life may begin.

5.) You are a brother to me. Age matters not, nor do our circumstances and our lifestyles; I intend to be around and to continue ministering to you, pouring the truth into your life that I know even now begins dancing atop the crown of your head. I pray that you find the truth and lead your family onward into the salvation and happiness; as a fantastic father, husband, and brother, I know you will. May the day come soon when tears can spill down my face at the news of your conversion; may the day come soon when I know we will stand together before our King someday.

6.) You... Words fail me for all that you have been to me, all you have done for me. Thank you for never giving up and for never abandoning me once since that hour of desperation you and I remember sharing all to well. Thank you for the nights you let me fall asleep crying into your embrace until your clothes were soaked; thank you for the advice which has stirred change within me and the patience which has outlasted my stubbornness. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

7.) Are there even words for how much I love you? You have known me from my youngest days and walked beside me through the path from childishness and immaturity into confident righteousness and humility through cathartic breaking. You are one of the only reasons I am, and the others you know full and well: God's grace and supernatural protection. You have grown with me, changed with me, helped me understand when to hold back and when to let it fly... but greatest of all, you did the worst possible self-damage in letting me get away that I could find myself in Christ on a whole new level. Thank you; I'm glad you did, and I'm equally glad that I'm back now... back, in some degree, to stay.

8.) Watching your life transform has been one of the single greatest joys of my entire life. We have been confidantes, challengers, mutually angered, mutually beloved... and now eternally bonded. What we have found none can maim or make falter save ourselves -- and God, should it be (as I hope it never is) His intent. You are so far beyond precious to me... I love you; I always have and always will, and neither hell nor high water can change that now.

9.) The time has finally arrived; this is your journey's beginning, and I am excited to both be a part of the launch crew as well as a part of the mass of people to one side waving farewell. We have butted heads, meshed hearts, driven hundreds of miles for one another, kept at a distance for one another, shared tears, shared laughter, shared arguments, shared a home, shared advice, and in the end I feel the truth is that now we share a small part of one anothers' hearts. You will always have a home where I lay my head; come any hour of the night you have all that you ask of me, for in some part you are eternally with me. I love you beyond what "love" adequately expresses, with more emotion than any song's movements can instill, more passionately than all but 5 in your life can even claim, and in greater sincerity and truth than these pseudo-poetic words can remotely describe. I love you, always and forever, come what may. I love you.

10.) Five and a half years... No one else can claim that that isn't family, and I suppose that to a degree you are already such to my heart. Five and a half years of torment, suffering, nights of crying where neither of us had any advice for the other save the anchoring we had in one another, days of jubilation I wish could have been shared more closely, mistakes we each regret and choices we could never regret. You are so intimately woven into the fabric of the meaning of "friendship" that I can barely think of the word without you coming to mind. You are amazing, still vastly untapped and yet so rapidly blooming and growing that my mind is numb with awe and excitement for you. Your time is arising now, and I pray desperately that it may come to you in every type of blessing I could possibly wish for you, including those in the spiritual realm. Stay with me, and I will be at your side through all the things we will face in the years ahead together just as we have in those behind. Never underestimate yourself again. Ever. Neither fault nor credit can be claimed by any now for who and what you become save you and Christ, and I pray for an ever-greater instillment of both in your life as I continue in my own growth, with my confidence in Christ increasing exponentially now. I love you, wholly and unconditionally, the way you deserve to be loved by your "brother". Continue to grow; stay the course, however difficult it may be, because I see both looking back over my path in parallel to your future as well as looking ahead alongside you for what is coming for us both that great things will be done with your life. Not may be, not will be dependent on condition... will be done. I love you; take care; pray earnestly for the truth and its implementations to continue being revealed in your life.

Hopping on the bandwagon

2006-09-24T22:32:00.000-05:00

I love tears, because those who cry are the most genuine and find the greatest healing through the greatest brokenness.

I love my family, both because of all we've been through together and - now - because of all I've been through without them that teaches me just how much they really were the only reason I stayed here, way back when...

I love my friends, because they challenge me to expand and love me unconditionally the way that no "friends" did for years; thank you for all being to me what I needed most.

I love being there for people; my heart has really grown over these past two years for people above and beyond what it was before, and I genuinely cherish the times together in laughter and in tears.

I love that Christ fulfilled the Scripture in me, in that my once greatest weakness is now my greatest strength: I am not, have never been, and will never be enough... yet in Christ I am beyond enough for all things.

I love watching the sun rise and set; the subtle shiftings barely amount and seemingly don't catch the eye, but over the course of hours... it's amazing.

I love being artistic and experiencing art; music stirs my soul like little else, writing has been a beloved venue for years, and the inherant beauty in the world all around is amazing to me.

I love Qdoba's. (I had to throw it in!!! :-P)

I love that there are no demons left to hide, no skeletons left in the closet.

I love the thought of someday having someone to love.

I love that there is nothing in this world which is beyond healing, something I've been taught well through the many experiences of my life and the maturing lives of those around me.

I love being "in the crunch", where I can either grow and rise to the occasion or fall to my knees that I might grow.

...I love that my God has never once failed to make good on what I called him on eight years ago: changing my life to keep me from ending it. I love my God's love. I love my God's mercy, His never-ending forgiveness, His comforting embrace, His well-intentioned chiseling, His patience, His faithfulness, and His miraculous provision which has spared my life on far more than one occasion. I love sharing with others all He has been for me and done in me and through me. I love that most of my friends love my God as much as I do, and I desperately love the friends who do not in the desperate hope that they one day find the same love I have now found, knowing that little could be better for them all.

I love my God, my master, my King... my Father.

system overload

2006-09-21T08:49:00.000-05:00

Wow... The life around here since move-in has been insane, but these last 13 days have been absolutely crazy and amazing...

On the 9th, Julie, Vanessa, and I went hiking in the Gorge on a gorgeous day; at the far end of the climb was a free climb rock that I chose to go up (barefoot, couldn't do it in the boots I had). It was incredibly freaky to free-climb something that high; the only times I've been that high without a set of climbing gear, I'm inside a building. :P It was awesome to get to know I've (mostly) conquered my old fear of heights, and once I hit the top of the climb (somewhere 50-80 feet?? one of ya help me out and I'll go with 60 in the meantime) it was a huge thrill. Pictures pending on Julie developing them. :P We stopped in at the world's greatest pizza place on the way back and then watched a movie here at the WF with some others to close out the amazing Saturday... That was one of the best days I've had in a long time.

Since then, classes have been picking up steadily and working two shifts a week over the top of it was killing my ability to be a part of the life around this dorm; I stuck with it for a while though, partially in waiting to see if things would settle out and partially wanting to give my friend (and "boss" Rob) some extra time to sort out how to run the ship with me gone. When I was spending time with Bill on Thursday, however, he posed the simplest pair of questions ever: he asked what was most important to me and then if my schedule reflected it. Relationships are of course at the top of my existence, counting those with God, family, friends, loved ones, classmates... I'm all about people and our interactions: healing, catharsis, repentance, supporting one another, etc. My schedule... obviously didn't reflect that, and it put me at peace about what I already knew: my job is going to go. It wasn't even midnight when I called Rob up to inform him that I was going to be cutting down my hours and slowly working out of a job there.

Sunday night I was given the challenge to present my testimony on Monday, when Bill was speaking on purity... Monday... was amazing. I hit my knees for a long time beforehand, spilling to God that I didn't have what I needed to do it right and do it fully for the right motives, and God moved in an awesome way Monday night; for lack of any better way of saying it, the Spirit just drenched the air in the room, and after Bill spoke people were in clusters everywhere just getting real with one another, baring themselves and their deepest struggles. It was absolutely amazing... It was everything I could have possibly hoped for from the evening and then some; God indeed made good on His promises and my prayers, and seeing that come to fruition was a moving experience for me. (Not to mention that, to a degree, giving my testimony got a lot of things off my chest and out there about myself, reinforcing my statement that I intend to be real with everyone and hiding nothing... that helped.)

Tuesday I spoke with Rob about how we would implement quitting, and it got a lot of weight off my shoulders to hear my buddy supporting my choice to enjoy the life and community I have down here on campus. All I have to do is work 2 or (maybe) 3 more of my Tuesday morning shifts and I'll be done up there, only possibly coming back on rare occasions for breaks from class or aid to my Giovanni's family should some dire situation arise.

And... I guess that's all the big stuff. The rest is just learning how to live the life and then being called to live it out, which is what I'm working on.

Take care.

Jupiter

2006-09-08T14:56:00.000-05:00

The thunder rolls, the clouds decay
As squawlines bring an early end
To sprinkled sunlight once called "day"
Before the stormclouds break and bend
A blue to black which time will mend

Click, click; the heavy pack released,
A weighty burden physical
Whose once back-breaking force is ceased
From what was an unethical
Yet necessary load to haul

The very boots upon your feet
Are quicksand pools which stalk your tread
Across a darkened landscape deep
In cries, nostalgia, and the dead
Who echo what your heart has said

A canopy of drizzling rain
Which shows no sign of slowing down
Yields shivers o'er the aches and pains
Which longtime travelers have found
In troughs with long ascents around

A piercing light! The widened gaze
Looks out across the denouement
And questions the cathartic hike,
Questions if it can carry on
The journey long ago begun

The step ahead defies the mind
It tells all skills gained to survive
To leave themselves - and sense - behind
And somehow walk ahead alive...
Walk on the waves; trust not to dive.

With leaden stride and sweaty coat
The load is hoisted up again
And breathing deep (to help one float)
The stride of faith - a stride of pain -
Attempts to tread the waves in rain.

A concrete block collides with steel
With flicks around the boots in ways
Which call to memories that heal
Of long-forgotten yesterdays
Of toes bathed in warm, crystal waves

The startle compounds as the stride
Brings second foot atop the seas
In disbelief, faith's thrill, and pride
Though but a moment 'til its cease
As waves the traveler's weight release

A desperate cry no ears to hear
A fact well known as clothing soaks
The laugh of "dampened cuffs" so dear
Is lost within the leaden cloaks
And waterlogged pack which sinks and chokes...

A frantic pull, frenetic kicks,
All efforts seem to pass in vain
For treasure lost to once more lick:
A taste of air, a touch of rain...
Things lost, not to return again.

And as the light fades from the eyes
Beneath a cold and watery grave
A final cry amidst demise
Hopes somehow there is one to save
A weary traveler from the waves

Click. Click.

The pack releases.
STROKE!
The crimson corneas will burn
But fire stronger, brighter rages
Deep within as sore lungs yearn
For air to kiss with life's return

A spray of hope, amazement bright
As surface pierces in the night
With swimmer's hopes restored at sight
Of voices aiming large spotlights
At where he floats, inhales, and cries.

...A pile of blankets warm and thick
As melancholy environment
Sings softly, fades like memory
Within the arms of heavensent
Which speedily restore the bent
and broken state of traveler's frame;
At least this angel knew his name
And heard his calls for saving grace
To carry what his legs could not
Across the sea which peace forgot
To lay before his Savior's face

...He longs to hear the voice he's long since known
Smile down at him and whisper, "Welcome Home."

...written just now. no, i don't know where it came from. yes, first draft.

Crikey!! R.I.P. Steve

2006-09-04T01:02:00.000-05:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060904/ap_en_tv/obit_irwin

:-\

Meaningless Post

2006-09-02T13:02:00.000-05:00

So, Lexington is officially the 10th smartest city in America.

...No, I'm not kidding:
http://money.cnn.com/2006/08/29/real_estate/brainiest_cities/index.htm#list

:D

"What is ?" part 1: Loneliness

2006-08-29T19:12:00.000-05:00

Yes... Satan must be swearing and buying up parkas, because if I'm blogging again, it's getting icy down there...

I guess the more that I experience an emotion these days the more I try to delve into the genuine nature of the emotion to decide if it's something I want to give power over me, rather than simply - for lack of a better way of expressing it - floating along "helplessly" within the emotion. I've long since realized that who I am and what I become is solely the choice of my actions and thus how I feel is also a consequence of that, so I try to take heart even in the worst of times.

Thus comes the question: Is loneliness really as wrong as I think it is? When one stops to think about it, here's the heart of loneliness: envy. Loneliness states, quite simply, that I believe my life should includ something which it does not, qhich in this case is an emotional relationship, and since it fails to have such either I am a failure, which leads to the path of depression (then emptiness, self-hatred, ambition, desperation, faulty redefinition, "triumph", and loneliness at the top, which returns to depression and thereby a pseudo-helpless downfall which allows the cycle to repeat...) or my life has yet to find meaning, which means that currently it is meaningless (which leads to longing, which leads to loneliness, to a sort of courageous desperation, to satisfaction, to bittersweetness, and then to questioning everything again and finding that all that was everything is still just as much a nothingness as the prior setup was, and, yet again, the cycle is established). Neither of those two paths is particularly pretty.

From a path that's more involved and won't seem quite as emotionally detached, I could also say that loneliness is something which destroys me, something which leads to questions about my worth which occasionally aren't answered with truths. Loneliness and depression have rendered me somewhat helplessin the past on numerous occasions, including a few periods in my life that I've had to fight through to God amidst to find help amidst desperation and to overcome some suicidal descents of long ago; from that regard, loneliness really tears apart who I am and destroys my ability to find and fulfill my purpose in this life and in God's plan.

Either way, loneliness seems to be some sort of "easy out" which really doesn't end up being so easy.

Even so, on the other hand... Loneliness is something to be shared about, at times. It isn't necessarily an "emo cry for help" sort of response to a situation, but more so a simple statement that the recent course of events is too much to bear, too overwhelming to endure on my own, and that I need those who care for me to help me bear the burden, either through prayer or through giving me some advice or sharing their own experiences that I can be encouraged by what they've overcome... Loneliness, in the RIGHT regard, is quite the admission of humanity, a simple and powerful statement that I fully accept - and publicly admit - my inability to take as much as I've been dealt out without help from others and from the God who has miraculously spared my life on more than one occasion (though those times are completely separate stories of phenomenal miracles and support in and of themselves). Then again, it is just as much a call to God, a sincerity of heart that says, "I know this isn't the right way to feel about where I'm at, and I want out of it... but I don't see how to from here, and right now I just can't get out on my own." To say anything to the contrary would be lying about where I'm at, and it's shown in Scripture that God is far more powerful in weakness (see Hebrews 11, particularly the latter half) and more merciful amidst sincerity (when Abraham confesses his doubts to God after saving Lot via an amazing military victory) and during complete breakdowns (God's provision for Elijah in the desert when he runs away and despairs even of life).

So... opinions. Let's hear it.

*grins* And the funny thing is that I already feel better after simply writing this. And looking through some pics of the friends from LHS and from the dorm here which make me smile and remind me of how miraculous my very life is, much less the love and growth I have found here. :-D

The Journal of Craziness

2006-08-24T00:01:00.000-05:00

going high school mode with this ghey post i can't stop since i need to keep awake until the canadians arive... must... stay... awake...

Monday (14th): my thumb was sliced by a kamikaze flourescent light bulb tube. the lightbulb loses the fight (i tossed its carcass into the herbie after all was said and done) but victory cost me three stitches and a $15 co-pay at the beaumont centre UTC. ow.

Tuesday: worked the morning shift as usual, got a little help with the supply truck but lifted a crackload of 20+ pound boxes one-armed & threw around pepperoni cases i palmed. felt extremely beef as a result until my right arm reminded me that it gets tired after a while. the wound heals unbelievably rapidly. my mother officially has to have surgery again, but she also officially has a new job awaiting her after the recovery is completed.

Wednesday: i got my night shift traded for a day shift so i can be here when david gets here. the other david, not myself as referred to in the third person. my roommate moves in, the craziness begins; range of motion in my thumb is already most of the way back and i can help carry his stuff in as well as rearrange things. more dorm clean-up.

Thursday: still more dorm clean-up. a few more early move-ins. david williams brings back bricks to put his cabinet up on. dinner at bill's house for servant team & we go to see Ice Age II afterwards. sleep deprivation is maintained at a high quality level, aka a low level of intelligence on my part with regards to my health. i still have no groceries.

Friday: 8:30 a.m.: servant team breakfast, retreat, lunch. more move-ins, painting, and our room gets finalized just in time as i envisioned it would. my thumb officially begins to seem ready for stitch removal, but since i was told 7-10 days i choose to wait more time.

Saturday: sleep deprivation begins to shift over to habitual; the title of "tradition" seems to close in rapidly. official move-in day for the dorm in the middle of the campus-wide exodus of freshman incapable of comprehending signs which read "one way", parents who don't understand, "don't call me, i'll call you," and returning students. lots of rain downpours, but our team of ants massacre the cars which arrive as swiftly as possible amidst the few sporadic dry spells and everyone gets in successfully who planned to move in. the floor finally has noise and life again for the first time since the cts move-out. i don't work tonight since i'm back on my school schedule now; amidst the weariness, i have a flavoflave of cheshire cat at all times wherein this thought occupies my mind. i think my post is beginning to sound like i'm stoned. whatevv.

Sunday (20th): i plan on getting up at 8:30, sleep deprived far worse than recent history has displayed possible, and successfully turn off my alarm in my sleep. this remains both impressive and hilarious, as well as rather... alarming. *bows* the 11 hours of sleep is far beyond drastically needed, however, so i forgives myself. i head home and sleep fitfully on a couch after writing out my soul about the matter of my mother's surgery in the morning. sleep overtakes me some time after 2 a.m.

Monday (21st):
6:30 a.m.: try to get up, fall over.
7:00 a.m.: wake up again, successfully get up after a minute or two of laying "asleep with open eyes", get dressed & ready and head for the hospital at 7:30. mother submitted at about 8 a.m., waits for the surgeon to complete the prior procedure, goes back. the surgery takes 40 minutes and we head home around 10; she falls asleep quickly after already displaying increased awareness, increased awareness of her wound's pain, and drastically improved range of mobility from the last time around.
noonish: i broil and devour two grilled chicken breast + cheese sandwiches, along with a "Mike Sells" Himalayas and a tall glass of chocolate inhale -- er, milk. i head back to the dorm around 1.
3:00 p.m.: freshman orientation begins; i'm spontaneously thrown in charge of a group and we have a good time wandering campus as i play tour guide, leader encouraging haste, and casual upperclassmen who appears to the group to know campus like the back of his social calendar. though my calendar has been pretty daggon empty outside of "work, eat, sleep, repiten", so that isn't saying much.
6:00 p.m.: (why am i still typing this retarded post? am i in high school? people don't want an effing play-by-play. oh well. may as well finish.) building contracts, dinner, more building meetings. more sleep deprivation ensues as the one-day-exception sunday fades to a memory.

Tuesday:
8:30 a.m.: on something like 5 1/2 hours of sleep, i got up for orientation and breakfast.
noon: lunch, head our separate ways... i snag my books for class and discover that i not only succeeded in getting my day shift swapped to a night shift, but by god being coolio another manager calls and returns me a favor (which i'm sure he'll complain about behind my back, but hey) by taking the night shift unasked. he halfway seemed to want it... whatever, we'll say it was one. he owes me a mountain. :-P
Midnight: heading from Guys' Night (watched Mission Impossible 3) over to Waffle House on South Broadway. I beat Bill there as we go separate ways; waffles are still tasty.
2 a.m.-ish: packed my backpack for the next day, then went to sleep.

Today:
7:45 a.m.: time to get up. shower, dress, brush, no eating due to slight queasiness.
9:00-9:50 a.m.: physics 232
9:50-11:00 a.m.: i go by ovid's cafe to look at the beautiful new lay-out and worship at the new starbuck's in the basement of the library, not 250 yards from my dorm. gorgeous!! and, of course, with starbucks has come a vastly improved selection of music. unfortunately, with starbucks has also come the elimination of all sizes of fountain drinks from ovid's safe the little dinky medium cup i drank 3 of today. why? it's puny. but i did get to talk to my darling friend who has worked the ovid's register on days for years now, who knows me by name as i know her. she's awesome. :-P then i left and wandered over to the seaton center to confirm the location i had in my mind of our frisbee class' meeting place and did a dry run towards CB to see how long of a walk it would be; pushing it, the dry walk that i cut off halfway and guesstimated the rest off of suggested that CB to SC would be a 13 minute walk. for the record, my CB class ends at 1:50 and my SC class starts at 2:00. this adds up to badness.
11:00-11:50 a.m.: cs 216
11:50 a.m.-1:00 p.m.: aimlessly wander back to the wf (which wouldn't be so aimless then, would it...), eat lunch, head for class and snag another refill on my way by ovid's.
1:00-1:45 p.m.: ee 280. yes, that should say to 1:50, but who wants to be late to frisbee, much less on the first day? i leave early and make sure with my khp 101 prof that it's okay for me to be a minute or two late each day. it is, but then he declares before the class that tardies count as absences, and we only get 3 collectively. thoughts begin of buying a bike...
2:00-2:30: ultimate frisbee class. we didn't play today; just discovered that the entire class is just experienced players and one chick who's new-ish. and covered "my 10 basic rules" which he got from the internet and plageurized as his own. but hey... why bother reporting him? he gets paid, frisbee gets played, i sayed it's all good. yes, sayed. we'll go with it.
3:30-midnight: work. left around 3:20, got home around 12:05, but really worked 3:45-11:41 or something. whatever.
midnight-12:30ish: jPod + dw devour my giovanni's pizza with me which i brought home as i vent the massive craziness of the night. j discloses a few experiences of his own. dw laughs lots, in some blend of mockingly ('cuz i'm dumb, hopefully you all know that) and appreciatively (for the comedic portions of our tales).
some other span of time until now: i type this retarded post to let everyone admire the craziness and mock the crazy boy simultaneously. why? because i should be the one, of everyone, who is best at mocking me; it's just a fact. i figure i've had 19 years of experience, so i should be good by now, methinks.

strike with precision

2006-08-21T22:57:00.000-05:00

(Note: This was written last night, just prior to my mother's surgery... I timestamped it 1:07 a.m. when I started typing.)

Previously this summer, for those of you who weren't aware, my mother was diagnosed with a hernia in the vicinity of her right femur joint (directly beneath the swimline, essentially) and had surgery for its removal; she was given an estimated recovery period of 4-6 weeks, with the first 1-3 being almost completely off her feet and the first 4-7 days pretty much out of it. The healing process came along relatively well and her range of motion was dramatically increased; however, about 2 1/2 weeks into the healing process, she was informed at work that her employers' company was suffering some financial hardships and cutbacks were becoming necessary to keep the company moving forward; for the time-being, one of those cutbacks was her job. She was given 2 weeks' notice, during which her presence in the office was nonmanditory, and after the pay for these two weeks was expired, she was officially released from the office, given a final paycheck as compensation for the PTO (sick time) she had saved up which she never used (~80 hours' worth). Obviously, this was a dramatic blow for her, but she kept anchored as best as she could, crying tears in my father's arms which she hopes I don't know about, and she hit up the job market during her recovery period with a slew of applications and investigations. During this time, however, as the recovery period continued (a little after being officially unemployed though with the PTO check still coming, so I suppose that would put it right around 4 1/2 to 5 weeks into recovery), she noticed that in the vicinity of her previous hernia there was yet again the sort of "puffyness"to the area which she could poke in and have rise back out, and an ever-so-slight pain began to arise. God showed up dramatically during this period and she was offered 4 different jobs, including the one which she had most hoped to be offered, and she accepted the job of choice -- working with a local technical firm involved in various nearly-cutting-edge fields -- this last Monday.

However, just before calling back the company to accept the job, she returned to the surgeon's office at the hopsital to explain the pains and found out -- to our horror -- that there were two halves to the hernia; leaving out the names for simplicity's sake, there was a half above the swimline and a half below, and the surgeon and his team entirely missed the upper of the two halves. He apologized profusely, mortified himself that he had made such a tragic oversight, and immediately arranged for a secondary surgery to be made to fix the other half.

The surgeon arranged for the secondary surgery to be free of charge save hospital expenses. (Pardon the French:) No shit. *sighs*

Encouragingly, the company she is soon to be employed by was fully aware of her condition when they offered her the job, and they accepted fully the necessity for her secondary surgery; they were informed that the recovery period was estimated, again, between 3-6 weeks, though the surgeon says he fully anticipates a swifter recovery period this time around, since all parts of the hernia will now be fixed and a greater initial range of motion will be available, given that the previous surgery has already healed half the region.

So... my mother's second hernia surgery will be performed in the morning (the 22nd) at around 8 a.m., and she looks forward to being employed again soon enough; I believe she plans on starting her new job in two weeks' time, after full recovery and healing.

In the meantime... frustration abounds, and her face was obviously contorted tonight with an overwhelming sense of helplessness and an increasing doubt in her surgeon's abilities, though she chose to invest faith in his statements and to permit him the new surgery's performance. Previously, she was nervous about going under the knife, but had no real knowledge of the experience (though as organized as she is, believe me, I recieved more than enough e-mails describing everything she expected to have incorporated in the first procedure, from the surgeon's information and background to an online website describing the type of automated pain pump which she would have inserted for the first few days after the surgery); this time, the pain is real and the experience -- a frustrating and agonizing one the FIRST time around -- is one she already dreads doing again, as she has as much as stated amidst sobs. I believe her quote was, "When we found out, I cried, screamed and puked -- though not necessarily in that order."

I know she will heal more rapidly this time, and I have faith that the procedure will work out flawlessly this time; however, nonetheless, it is still an encounter which must be endured for the end result: complete healing and release. I suppose the frustrating part of it for me is seeing her in that kind of trauma and pain, both the emotional kind which she is incapable of bearing the full burden of as I imagine her sobbing upstairs in a ball clutched to my father's side and the physical kind which she has endured and is about to undergo yet again; for those of you outside the situation, the psychological load of it all is, understatedly, unimaginable. I'm frustrated seeing her in this pain, seeing the mother who has spilled tears of love and joy and relief for me before sob in mortified anticipation, seeing the tender heart who has cared for me when few others did torn asunder with dismay and helplessness... For all of the great faith which she has and whichc she has given her full efforts to pass on from her and my father to me, she trembles before this moment, and it aches to FEEL that. ...even so, I can do nothing. I am helpless, a bystander who must look on during the procedures within my mind from the waiting room, a loving son who must sleep alone in the basement tonight so I can keep my father from being alone tomorrow morning as he waits for news of the wife he couldn't possible be holding any closer right now as he wages his own wars against anger, helplessness, despair... Anticipation doesn't hang in the air; it seeps through the very walls of our house and the fibers of our beings like something out of that crazy HOUSE OF WAX movie from this spring.

And in such a moment as this... I have the single greatest potential for biasing the situation of anyone should they falter. Period. My mother needs to see her son as anchored as ever and as firmly believing in a quick, low-pain recovery as anyone could possibly be. My father needs a son who is quick to come to the call and eager to serve in an y and all ways possible. My brother needs a believing sibling to esteem and pattern after. Our surgeon needs a forgiving, believing soul within the family and the body of believers who, nonetheless, expects the best from him this time around, without the least sign of accepting anything less than the flawless victory he knows the surgeon's work is capable of yielding. I have been implanted into this situation like a drip into a pond, either to be swept away downstream by the current of dismay and emotion or to hit the water with a ripple tha neither storm nor seixure can stop the impact of, and I hear the call; I am RISING to meet that call, to face these next few days head-on and to exceed the call of duty, to fulfill all that God NEEDS to use me for and then to open myself up further to allow Him to do greater work still that He may be brought further glory through my witness and my unshakability. He carried me through the seas which threatened to tear me asunder as the very core of my world was ripped apart, s much so that looking back I fail to even remember but a day or two when I even PERCEIVED it as a storm rather than as something I could look back on in sheer awe with humble thankfulness for the overwhelming, inexplicable peace which I huddled within start to finish.

I suppose it is as was said in TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Atticus, speaking of courage: "It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what." There is no victory over pain here; it is simply a portion of the experience which we -- particularly my mother, I should say -- must endure, which we must fight. Is there victory over this hernia, however? Yes!! We possess access to a complete and miraculous healing over the alternative path: the long, arduous process of living with a hernia for the next 30-60 remaining years of my mother's life, with slowly increasing pain which would eventually reach an agonizing magnitude before somehow crippling her for life; that holds no power over her now because tomorrow morning we will be given victory over it with unquestionably full and flawless healing.

Nevertheless... battles take effort to fight, whether or not they deal out injury or trauma, and in our case the battle is a metaphysical one infinitely more than it is a physical one. Yes, the pain will be relatively excruciating for the first while, but we understand how to work around it, when to use the pain medicine which the surgeon will be prescribing, and what the situations will necessitate for this experience's conquest. Yes, the immobility will be difficult to work with and will greatly incapacitate my mother for a while, but we are fully capable of overcoming it with companionship and teamwork -- in conjunction with the occasional cell phone call for aid -- as well as through the use of certain maneuvers which we mastered the last time around to help get my mother around the house when necessary with minimal pain. The greatest portion of this battle is the metaphysical: the psychological trauma which we must refuse dominion over us, the despair and dismay which we must not give a hold in our hearts, the frustration andwishes for another path to have arisen which we cannot allow to deviate us from the necessary course of action, the anticipation which we cannot allow to inflate the proportions of our struggle, and -- greatest of all -- the currently successful lie known as helplessness which attempts to convey a forced surrender to anguish and dismay so as to blind our sight from the overwhelming magnitude of healing and victory which this surgery promises to bring my mother in the morning. This is our day of victory; these our the days of the LORD stirring within our home to bring us ever closer to one another and within our lives to raise us ever further above our fallen, physical shells' anguish; we must hold our sights to that.

So... Of course please pray for swift healing for my mother, but equally important -- if not far more so -- is the request that you pray for our emotional endurance and for us to take heart, keeping in our gaze the prize which is laid before us at the end of this minimal trial of 4-6 weeks' healing process in the perspective of a peaceful, watched-over eternity.

======================================

*sighs* With that vented... In as much as we can tell currently, my mother's surgery from this morning appears to have gone excellently without any snags or errors, and she already seems to have a vastly greater range of mobility than she did previously after two weeks' time or so; thus I take heart in the continued belief that her healing will be complete, flawless, and abnormally swift. She was doing well enough this morning that I came back for freshmen orientation at the dorm today -- which I'm glad that I got to do -- and was thrown into the mix without warning, being asked to lead one of the groups around campus on our scavenger hunt. All in all it was a good night, between that, the annual building meeting to discuss contracts, and the evening out at Applebee's afterwards. Oh, and I took out the first of the three stitches today, though I'm leaving the other two in for another day or two here just to be absolutely certain that the wound won't reopen on me; it's already fully sealed as best as I can tell, and even the OR nurses watching over my mother this morning in Recovery said the stitches looked about ready for removal when I asked this morning, so it probably won't be much longer now on the other two. Yay for being a quick healer and someone under the LORD's protection!

Now... I think I'm going to bed. I couldn't possibly have fallen asleep before 2 last night, and the sleep was rocky at best between then and when I woke up at 6:30, and afterwards at 7:00 when I got up. Plus, the last portion of orientation is tomorrow morning, and breakfast begins at 8:30; I've already showered, so I can sleep at least a little later than most, but that's still a pretty early morning after this all.

Take care all. David Williams is a hottie. Yes, you, the one reading this last little bit over my shoulder, you sexy man you. I hope Laura doesn't mind sharing. (Is it Laura?)

"...If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness..."

2006-08-15T17:46:00.000-05:00

You'd figure that eventually summer's death grip would let up...

The insanity of it all is absolutely mind-numbing now that I look back on everything, and I think that perhaps that is why I've looked forward to this fall with such excited anticipation. (I also believe in my heart that this is going to be a phenomenal year, though whether that is for myself, "the W", the campus ministry, or the people I love, I don't know for certain yet.) I really stopped just now to think about how absolutely insane this summer has been, and I suppose that it's almost overwhelming to think about what a storm God has brought me through without even allowing me to perceive it as a storm, much less allowing me to be shaken asunder by it as I once would have been...

Late May: I decide officially that I need to stay at the dorm for the summer to "clean out the closet", if you will. I knew that there were a lot of things within that needed challenging and purging, and I knew that isolation was going to be one of those hurdles. Lack of empowerment was another, as I am a person who often struggles with being open and fully revealed to people, since one of my oldest fears - which, I discovered this summer, was still clinging to me and is still a daily battle to slowly work out 100% - was allowing someone to get to know me fully. If you think about it, if you allow someone to get to know you "well" but not extremely closely, you can settle for having a good few "good friends" who never get real with you, who never drop the bomb and slap you in the face to ask what the hell you're doing with yourself... I settled for that, for people who knew I was a great person but never asked the toughest questions of me the way that I would of them, and so the fear persisted of ever letting someone fully get to know me, since that would then allow them - in this mindset - the ability to know me fully and then deny my worth as a person. Plus, whenever one faces rejection, you can convince yourself of the twisted slur of a truth that "they never really got to know me", which is only true as long as you allow yourself to forget that the fault for that is yours rather than theirs. While this is an extremely twisted and inaccurate mindset, coming from the background of depression and self-disbelief that I raised myself out of as best as I could - amidst God's grander scheme which I never saw at play - it is something that held extremely true... I feel that I faced that down a lot this summer.

I've also learned to cope with the loss of the few close people I have. Before there was a mentality that everyone I ever grow close to I have lost, and almost unanimously, outside of my family, this has held true. Now I understand that of course I'm going to lose the ones I love just the same way that I will lose the ones who I do not; unless they end up living near me, sharing some sort of faith-based community with me, or marrying me, I'm going to eventually lose every friend that I have, whether that friendship runs for 40 years or 40 weeks. It hurts particularly deeply for me, as someone who genuinely cares for people and has a heart that yearns for the best for all, desiring to be there in laughter just as closely as in bitter tears, but that is the truth: they are not "mine" in any regard. You are my friends and as such are beloved and precious to my heart to a degree that I could never hope to convey with words, but at the same time I have no right to claim any sort of bias on the type of person you become except to encourage you onwards in your pursuit of the life with Christ which God desires for you.

That's another thing I had to face down... I am not enough. I am, and please take this as a humble statement, a person who God has gifted greatly in a lot of areas, and I understand that He has blessed me with many talents and inherant gifts which I can never even remotely deserve the slightest fraction of; the twist that my life has given to that is that whenever trials come, I lower my shoulder and push the harder and make it happen. Crunch time in class and the group's failing? Tell the TA that they're doing nothing and pick up the entire 3-person project on my shoulders. Family's hurting? Go spend the extra time in prayer and with them and heal it. Business is shaking? Work 50 hour weeks to constantly be there helping make it happen and helping it to reshape and transform to a positive, fun-loving, profit-yielding organization. Time and again, when life throws down, I put on my super cape and try to make it happen. The problem with that, however, is quite simple: I can't. I can't make anyone's tears stop, though perhaps the love that I have for them will bring consolation and stability to their heart. I can't make my grandfather come to Christ as I've hoped for alongside my father since I was a boy, but perhaps the new perspective of an up-and-coming man in the family with his same scientific vision yet a completely different, healing-and-transformation-based lifestyle can be used by God to work the thought into his heart that perhaps... just perhaps... there is still time for change and healing. I can do nothing, but my strengths can be used mightily by God to accomplish much if I give them to Him rather than wielding them for myself like a battle axe, cleaving through the shyte when it's up to my kilt line.

...moving on...

Still... the summer kept hammering away at me. A guy I knew from Lafayette high school was hit by a car in late May and was killed. One of the delivery drivers I worked with died from cancer. My mother has had surgery once already, and the surgeons - traumatically - apparently missed an entire half to the hernia in the initial procedure, and she'll be back under the knife yet again this coming Monday, though this time unemployed and looking at promising potential jobs rather than looking ahead to a promising potential within a current job. My parents were out of the country for a week at one point. My grandfather 3500 miles away seems to be revealing things from his past he has never allowed light - much less healing - in the 82 years of his life, and my grandmother out there is quickly fading in health due to exorbitant (sp?) obesity. My father's workplace has been in turmoil for a few months now with dissent even going as far as the Board of Directors. My own job has been within a workplace that is vastly pessimistic and entirely nonChristian, and beginning to turn the business around over the course of the past 3 months has been one of the most agonizing, arduous, sleep-deprivating and beautiful experiences of my entire life, though even now it is still at a sort of critical mass stage right as I have to cut back on my hours for freshman move-in and the beginning of what I hope and believe will be an amazing school year. My thumb almost got the primary joint muscle sliced in two by a freaking light bulb explosion whose shards God veered less than a hair away from tearing my thumb asunder & kept from impacting me anywhere else somehow, though shards later littered the asphalt and stairwell on every other side.

Time and again this summer has felt the seizmometer jump off the table with its spikes kicking... but somehow God is holding me anchored, hoping that I hang tight to Him amidst the ferocity of it all, and in most regards - including many I never gave over before - I am. Heck... as opposed to modern Christian music as I am for its blatant commercialism overwhelming the very very very few bands who genuinely enhance the kingdom and glory of God rather than their sales numbers... I bought some, and a few of the songs I actually enjoy enough and take heart in enough to play somewhat frequently. (Still only somewhat; I'm still a rock kid. ;-D)

But I think I see it all now: perhaps the truest and single greatest reason I look forward to this fall is that it is a completely new chance to humble myself before others and to rebirth yet another part of my life. This time last year -- in fact a year ago today -- I moved into this dorm and began an amazing transformation, choosing to put to death the many parts of myself which I hated and undergoing an agonizing transformation which I kept under the surface until God (and a few of you cool, closest of friends) pulled the darkest of personal demons into the open this summer for exorcism. I now have a chance to transform yet another aspect of my nature: finalizing (and simultaneously beginning) the shift to a person who can boast of their weaknesses and how they make me stronger than any of my giftings and strengths and intellect and reps at the gym and... anything... ever remotely did.

That doesn't say it well enough... and yet, I suppose, it will have to suffice; considering that this is one of the few extremely personal posts I have ever put fully public, it'll fly with me. :-)

The Purple Heart

2006-08-14T17:11:00.000-05:00

I suppose I'm officially a long-term member of the Wesley Foundation cult now; I've now literally sweat and bled for "the W".

During the weekend of dorm renovation and clean up, we needed to change out a few of the long tube lights here in the dorm since some had burned out; these fluorescent tubes are, however, just a hair too long to fit into the trash herbies, so I volunteered to carry them out, set them in the herbies, and carefully break them. As I was tapping the last one (you carefully crack them at the midway then flex them over to break them, it shattered at the tap and a shard of glass ripped my thumb open at the base!! :-( The glass shard completely ripped through the skin & barely pinpricked the muscle inside... an extremely close call to needing muscular repair surgery (expensive like WHOA, not to mention long-term recovery & pain)... but God protected it and I'm all sown up now (3 stitches & the order to keep the thumn wrapped & immobile for 36 hours). Plus the copay was cheap... yay for insurance!!

So... I guess I've gotten my WF Purple Heart now; no turning back and bailing out on the cult now!! :-P Nah, I love my W & my family here (which is really what it has been & become to me), & I'm happy to have been here this weekend to help make it all happen!

This fall's going to ROCK!!!! :-D

3 posts in 2 days?!? What?!?

2006-08-10T23:51:00.000-05:00

Yeah... whatevvv. :P

The room move-out/move-in is well underway... has come a LONG way since the beginning, though there's still far to go to get it all up-to-snuff before two sleeps elapse as hoped. David Williams (roomie-to-be) moves in the 16th. I need a much longer EtherNet cord for my internet so I'm not running it relatively tensely across the floor (well, it's not even on the floor right now o_O).

Just thought I'd drop a line... Pictures will ensue once I have the room finished and can post some "after" pictures that are worth posting. :-P

(non-artistic post) Fall Schedule

2006-08-09T22:05:00.000-05:00

Craziness. (Not CrazyNess. Sorry. Though you'll have time in here, too. ;-D)

physics (lecture) MWF 9-950, (study class) TH 12-1250, (lab) W 0330-0520
programming MWF 11-1150
electrical engineering MWF 1-150
ultimate frisbee MWF 2-250

Yes, you read the last one right; yes, I'm taking a "breather course" for a single credit after my crazy summer and crazier 16-credit-hour semester from before, which should help a lot here since the Physics II load should be nutso and I hear that this is the semester when we learn Linux, which I'll need an insane amount of time to learn.

Also, I'm working during school, but just two shifts a week: Tuesday mornings and Wednesday nights. Yes, that results in me having absolutely no life on Wednesdays; however, yes, that means that Thursdays (except 12-1250) + on weekends I'm a free-for-all grab-up. :-D

Last, I'm going to try to make it a weekly thing to spend some time with my parents (at least at first) while things are stabilizing for all of us, so I'll probably be home on Sundays, say noonish to 6ish (which also gives me enough time to do laundry, shwing!!!).

& of course we'll all be pimping it at FUEL. :D

<< excited for the fallllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

FALL IS HERE!!

2006-08-09T21:47:00.001-05:00

i'm officially on my work schedule for school now, so i have ZERO on my calendar from now until tuesday morning save working a few hours friday morning + (probably, though not 100% for certain) driving my sister to tennessee to see adam.

so... julie + othaz... pick a night. :-P :-D

(going corny mode...) me = abcdefghijklmnopqrstvwxyz... MISSING U!! ;-)

okay, i'm retarded. and i'm done talking now. i'll be around. call me up and we'll do lunch. or dinner. or anything else we please. :-D

Amazing, though probably fake.

2006-07-27T13:44:00.000-05:00

Well... at least a few pieces of it are faked, but a lot of this is just downright amazing to the point of hilarious.

Can Professionals

That is all. *end transmission* :P

'It's hazy, but I remember this arm plunged into the water after me...'

2006-07-24T21:06:00.000-05:00

[...giving you the concluding emotion of my day, so as not to leave you in my previous despair without informing you of what God did today...]

I see that the deeper trials are coming with deeper waters, and that it's a lot easier to drown when you're walking on water in the stormy Pacific rather than in the shallow end of the pool. The more that God has given unto me, the more He will be requiring, and my reply to that needs to be to press into Him in desparation, as I did today (and better keep doing, so all of you reading be nagging me to make sure I'm constantly in the Word).

I feel that I'm coming full-circle now... I saw that a little in the teaching [CTS] tonight, when we discussed Peter. Peter was said to be 'deeply grieved' the third time that Jesus asked Peter if he loved Him, and the first reaction is to say that it's because Peter denied Christ three times and then Christ asked three times... but look at it more deeply. Peter was the one who said he loved Jesus more than the others, who said he would die with Jesus, who wanted to know where Jesus was going and why he couldn't follow, who swore he wouldn't leave Jesus' side, who was determined to never deny Jesus... and who leapt out of the boat headlong, racing the disciples to the shore to meet Jesus, wanting to do a few good deeds and forget; even so, Jesus was waiting there on the beach for him, saying, "No... this one we need to address, here and now, you and me."
Only two places in the entire Bible mention a coal fire: the fire Jesus was waiting for Peter at... and the fire where Peter denied discipleship three times while waiting for Jesus.
Even so, Jesus came back again, said He'd been praying, and quickly restored Peter, saying that now... now he was ready to follow, and Peter went on to a powerful life in ministry. Did he screw up after that? Plenty. Was he still hard-headed and occasionally wreckless? Sure.

...Did Christ change the world with his life? Yes.

I think this is my coming full-circle. God has set me apart from family (though in no way forsaken me from my bonds with them; if anything, He has deepened them) and brought me this new one. God took me from my old job and brought me this new one. God took all my old friends and brought me new ones. It all sounds happy... because I keep forgetting that it is a circle, a cycle wherein deep, painful brokenness, equal in magnitude, must be endured before the equal radius and opposite direction can be reached: great gifting, powerful endowment, and deep responsibility. This is my cirlce now. For all that I "preach" about how awesome the ideals of catharsis and noesis are and that the greatest place in life is brokenness... my understanding takes time to kick in (or, I should probably restate more accurately, takes God kick-starting it) when I get there. This is the conclusion of my brokenness, my deepest trial of the summer: seeing if I will give God the last of me and then press into Him in desperation both now and for the rest of my life as He continues to give me far more than I can ever handle, looking to Him whether or not I have it under control to give him the reins.

Thank you all for praying; please continue to, and I will for you also.

Millstones where milestones should be

2006-07-24T17:13:00.000-05:00

I feel heavy... My whole body lies here, having slept a good 12-13 hours today, and I feel too heavy to move, to speak, to breathe... I lack the drive to go socialize and lack the strength to stay in isolation; I have no hunger for time in devotions and yet know that spiritually I'm starving, just as physically I'm probably not in the best shape I've ever been in. Last summer has returned and wants me... wants to take me down the hole I was in before, and although I want to avoid it I lack the resolve to do something.

My flesh isn't weak; my spirit is spent.

...please pray for me; I understand that the importance of my growth this summer has massive effects in the dorm's community this fall, in my lifestyle from here on out, in the people who work under me at the pizza place, and just about everywhere else you can name. My family may be in stressful times, but they're grounded and I'm self-sufficient so they have no worries from me... and yet my father even just dropped me an e-mail saying he woke up this morning with a heavy burden to pray for me, asking how I'm doing. What do I say to that?

...The truth, I suppose, and yet even the strength for that much reveal is absent; I'm completely isolated socially- COMPLETELY- and I just feel... drained.

Pray for me as Satan comes at me hard now; I need to reanchor and find something quickly before these last three weeks in solitude sweep me overboard.

Bloggish by Blobbish

2006-07-15T13:21:00.000-05:00

I know that I haven't posted anything in forever and a day, but namely that's because the only things going on either aren't worth talking blogging about or aren't able to be expressed via a blog, so you'll just have to cope with the deprivation a little longer. :-P

In other news, I OC-d yesterday. No, not OD'd; A-B-C, OC'd. No, that's not related to the soap-for-teens about a ficticious, hollow lifestyle in California, and no, it isn't related to the pimp-yet-long-since-retired band the Supertones... OC means "open-close". As a manager, there are really only two shifts at my store: either you open the store in the morning or you close the store down at night; the shift change is at 4 pm and ya work either to or from that point. Yesterday... I did 'em both.

Clock In: 0837 AM
Clock Out: 0224 AM
SHIFT: 17.86 hours

Yeah... so for anyone around here who actually noticed I wasn't out and about this morning or afternoon, it's because I chose to sleep through until noon and recooperate. :-p The fun part of it is that I get to close the store again tonight, the night after putting up what (unofficially) is the longest shift that has been worked to-date at our store. Whee. **grabs a napkin to catch the pouring sarcasm** 32.58 hours for the week... I'll get somewhere between 1.5 and 3 hours of OT for the week, though, which is nice.

...I won't be posting about much else "personal" on here, since - again - little of the rest can really be expressed with a blog; even if it could, some of it I wouldn't post anyways, since I'm not sure who all reads this. :-O

Much love.

Music

2006-06-30T00:24:00.000-05:00

wrote this a little bit into the whole CTS thing, amidst the "no music" rule for the summer... finished it out tonight.

"Music is prayer for the common man, both religious and nonreligious, simply because outside of prayer itself it is the sole perfect form of expression of both emotion and spirit. It is prophetic in its relationship between the inspired convocations of one individual and the many kindred spirits enduring similar triumphs and trials. The harmonic soliloquies of spirit as expressed through auditory channels yield a common-man catharsis to all whose built-up walls have ever contained the bricks which trap one down with hearts of stone like those within the moved and the moving. There is no parallel, no equivalent experience to a downfall where words completely fail, where the soul can only groan in agony, amidst which a song comes forth - via chance or via sharing by a previous affectee - that taps the very heart of hearts within and wrenches forth the emotions tumbling and warring helplessly therein; rather than an unceasing, uncaring flow of tears falling mercilessly without end from an abysmal emptiness previously referred to as the heart, there is a single evoked tear which embodies the entirety of the process; it yields a complete catharsis, from unmaking to and through remaking, encased within a tiny salty droplet of physical and spiritual release. Surely few other experiences outside the realm of religion - if any - can parallel such a thing."

Silence

2006-06-20T20:55:00.000-05:00

(I looked up this story, halfway remembering it from a long time ago, to help explain slightly the reasoning for what I'm about to choose to embark upon...)

1 Kings 19:11-13
"The LORD said, 'Go out. Stand on the mountain in front of me; I am going to pass by." As the LORD approached, a very powerful wind tore the mountains apart; it broke up the rocks, but the LORD wasn't in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD wasn't in the earthquake.
After the earthquake a fire came, but the LORD wasn't in the fire. And after the fire, there was only a gentle whisper.
When Elijah heard it, he pulled his coat over his face; he went out and stood at the entrance to the cave. Then a voice said to him, "Elijah, what are you doing here?"

I've come to the conclusion that although I understand the lingering root of many of my problems, there is still a great deal within myself to be tested and tried. Asking God, "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting," (1) is a heavy decision to make, and it is something which I am convinced will yield a lot of long-desired change, but it will come with a heavy price and patience is needed. Although I'm willing to undergo the long, arduous process which I feel like I need to endure to really get rid of the fears and scars of my past, I have to confess that simultaneously I almost wish - at times - that things were more along the lines of a sort of "microwave prayer", that I could just ask to be freed of something and for my life to be rebuilt without it and - DING! - it would be done. That's not the case. God heals physical brokenness in an instant, releases metaphysical bonds with a word and a single breath, and covers the span of both a heart and a planet in the blink of an eye, but for a man... for ME... to change heart... that is something which will take far longer, I think.

The problem for me with change is that I've been so far down both ends of the swing. Really one can only swing to either lust of various sorts or pride of various sorts, and the challenge for me is that I have gone so far down both ends of the spectrum at some point in time or another in my life; in truth, in that regard I am very much along the lines of a "spiritual schizoid", I suppose you could say. Some days I'm perfectly "healthy", living a life that pleases God and uplifting others, but there are other days that my motives are subconsciously wrong, my prayers are tweaked to intellect rather than aligned to Spirit, and my thoughts and lifestyles are challenged... and, often, subdued.

Thus, to challenge myself over the course of the summer - along with the others here in CTS - to really surrender myself is a tough thing. If I withdraw from an action, there is temptation to feel proud that I can subdue it with a sort of spiritual starvation and that I have the power ("well, yeah, power in Christ, but -"), and there is danger there to simply replace one stone with another; in the other hand, there is the potential to fall into a sort of depressed anxiety, a fear that something good is being removed which was necessary for growth and that its absence, for however brief or eternal a span of time, will endanger the growth and life I so "desperately" need to find. In either path there is the potential to falter and fall into one of my previous lifestyles, into one of the many "schizoid" spiritual takes I have - and still can - perceive life through, and although all of those states come with a certain level of healthiness and growth and positivity, they are still tainted and aligned things which would ultimately lead to far worse states if given enough time.

So... Here's the conclusion I've come to: silence.

God may have used the storms in my life to shake me and batter down my walls, and He is fully capable of commanding the flames to burn away the chaff; equally so, He may be within the earthquakes which tear my very foundation apart. However... I feel that to really discern where I need to rebuild the only way I can possibly avoid faltering to either side is to allow Him to slowly show me how all things are aligned over time. Change like that takes patience... Patience like that takes trust... Trust like that takes something present to take heart in above all else present. I know I'm imaginative and creative and that my will is strong and my deepest desire is to be fully pure in motive... but I also understand that, at least for now, those are things which are not helping my walk.

I'm not suggesting a never-ending abstinence from everything that "is me" for the rest of my life and eternal salvation, but I feel in my heart that God has to show me, one piece at a time, over time, how to transform myself, and I feel that the best way to do that is complete silence: silencing my intellect, my quick-witted replies, my wisdom and discernment, my blind foolishness and condescending defenses, my playfulness and laughter, my false motives... All of it.

Silence.

So... In addition to having completely sacrificed the cultural "things of the world" which we've given up for the summer, I won't be talking this next week. From now through next Tuesday night, I won't be talking save what is necessary while at work and in communiques with my family in terms of the recent events going on and generally keeping up with one another. I may reply to an e-mail or two, but I doubt that even that will happen. Don't look for me on messengers & don't call up my phone. I love you all, deeply and passionately... but this is a time when I need to truly surrender everything by questioning everything and answering nothing.

I love you all. God bless you and keep you as beautiful as the memories of you that I cherish. May He continue to protect you ladies, Julie & Mary Joy, and get you "home" to Saskatoon the remainder of the way safely. May He guide you, Vanessa, in all the things you do - and that you choose not to do equally so. I don't really know if anyone else reads this blog regularly (since it's relatively "secret"/"private", and probably necessarily so to a degree, but if you do, I love you too, and may God preserve you and our friendships.

Talk to you Tuesday.

...but Oprah Winfrey sings in spiritual-ese!!!

2006-06-16T13:58:00.001-05:00

(If you aren't the person the title is for, ya just won't get it...)

I've come to notice that the majority of my writing (and my posting, really) is from an emotionally drained perspective on life... So little of the times that are good or "even-keel" are ever really logged or written about. It was somewhat startling to realize it, but the more that I thought about it, the less and less it surprised me, since as I thought back a lot of my confidence and creativity - writing, composing, quick wit, social retardation (wait, that shouldn't be on this list?!?) - came from a really dark period in my life as my reply to the rejection swing it had all taken. I was creative to vent a particular emotion, encasing some dark entity of self and darkness (or darkened self, at times) into a work of art that I could express and exorcise the emotion from my spirit with, leaving it there in that work to affect and powerfully touch all others to come along and read who would feel the power therein and identify with the experiences of this author. I wanted them to know they weren't alone, just as I wrote it hoping that I wasn't, either. Obviously, I've come a long way past that, but I've noticed now that apparently some level of that subconscious "I write the powerful things to vent rather than to glorify" still pertains to me, so here's me posting about something powerful yet positive: God has done a lot of awesome stuff in my life this summer, and continues to do more; thus, I'm excited to see what else is yet to come.

I think this is the only really "personal" post that I've made publicly viewable in months... There have been a few posts on my old site that I put as private (my eyes only, like a journal of sorts), but I think - I hope - that I've come far beyond those now. Perhaps this site will become a blending of powerful writing and also the expressions/descriptions of personal experiences for others to read, identify with, and - hopefully - find a methodology for handling in their own lives. Who knows what tomorrow brings? I'll worry about it then... each day is more than enough to handle on its own one at a time.

from Psalm 34:
"I sought the LORD, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears... The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them... The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous, and His ears are attentive to their cry... The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them; He delivers them from all their troubles. The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. A righteous man may have many troubles, but the LORD delivers him from them all; he protects all his bones, not one of them will be broken... The LORD redeems his servants; no one will be condemned who takes refuge in Him."

New Composition

2006-06-11T16:34:00.000-05:00

After nearly 3 months without writing a single piece of music (or even modifying one, in truth), the block finally broke today... I've had a little semblance of an idea in my head for quite some time now, but it never came into fruition, despite that I thought on numerous occasions of many different things which could be done with the piece which would make an awesome song... I had an hour and a half or so open (ending now, sadly) to begin the piece and finally get some of it down, and the amount which came through how I desired it to on the first try was extremely encouraging... I look forward to being able to play the piece for you all, as it is not only the first piece I've changed since 03/21/06 (according to my computer), but it is also the first religious song I've written in even longer than that.

Just needed to get that out since I'm hyped about it. :-D

Watch

2006-05-19T14:38:00.000-05:00

dancing ballroom renegade
cheating lover's serinade
uncooked carne's marinade
inescapable grenade

watch the world explode to pieces
never try to let it go
feel the shards rip jacob's fleeces
stained in blood, no one will know

green with envy, gray with leakage
pouring, spilling from the eyes
of the man of many pieces
with the shards sharing demise

rob the cradle, rules dismissing
lay the envy down to sleep
hide the diamond ring while kissing
secret known to all to keep

drain the bottle, spin the dradel,
keep the woofers pumping loud;
break the headboard, shake the cradle,
kiss in secret for the crowd

in the shadows, no one's listening
here near walls with eyes and ears;
stab with daggers, rumors, whispering...
unknown, you fulfill the fears.

pump the iron, kiss the pinky,
brag about the tattooed wrist,
host selective parties slinky-
surely he will not feel missed.

chug the bottle's crimson bleeding,
screw the babies, hush the cake,
eat the words which have no meaning,
date the chicks who flirt to break,
hug the paycheck, buy the presents
for the empty couch at home
sweet embrace of cold remembrance
cold as diamonds chambered, primed--

once you drank, unzipped, and partied
now zipped up, pretentious shrinks
ponder at the senseless question:
what the unblinking deadman thinks...

watch the world explode to pieces
pouring, spilling from the eyes
wish redemption like the fleeces
laid across your empty eyes

live the world's emboldened bleakness,
emptied, wishing tears could flow;
roll for blunts from jacob's fleeces
bluntly: blood-stained, he won't know...

green-black mildew, grayed out matter
spilling from the new third eye;
the "unbreakable" lies shattered,
scarrer sharing scarred's demise.

watch the potter remold pieces,
healing up the tissue scarred
deemed inoperable by fleeces
draped on doctors' best disbarred

feel the heart which clears catharsis
sobbing, hurting, and yet... free...
staring down at jacob's fleeces
cleansed of jacob's agony.

no regrets for lifestyles missing,
parties where you're blocked, dismissed;
live for pain which brought the healing...
live to share it, as permissed

watch the world explode to pieces;
tears pour, spilling down your face.
feel reedemed; embrace the heartache:
one-with-One, all pieces at peace.

In a year's time...

2006-04-16T22:54:00.000-05:00

Where will you be standing in a year's time? Currently, however your life may be elapsing, whether the emotional reactions you have are poor or soaring and whether or not the circumstances around you are made of frustrated depression or enlightening joy and overwhelming love, you're sitting here right now, reading the words poured out by one voice to the few ears who will hear. You're reading about the memoirs of an entire year as postmarked to the soul of the self by its creator while simultaneously intended to speak to the hearts of the few who would read it with the courage to consider these words applicable as their own voice, their own future.

A year ago today, I could not have pictured myself sitting here with things going as well as they are; the magnitude of the love which I have found in this place and the metamorphosis which has changed so much of what I am in this seemingly brief period of time are simply beyond what my mind and my level of experience could possibly have imagined 365 days ago. There are not words, no matter the extremity or absence of my gifting with them, to describe the experience which I have passed through in this year; while it has partially elapsed via the lead of a gracious hand and occasionally from a boot to the pants by the same guide whose arm is around my neck, I have watched nearly everything which I once called myself crumble and fall away, willingly or not. The pain has occasionally been a heavy burden to bear, and the tearing away of the old has at times been a huge relief, a heavy sigh shrugging the gigantic load from one's shoulders, but in all cases and at all times I have done what I could to trust, imperfect as that trust often was.

A year ago today, I could not have imagined having six or eight close friends; as a matter of fact, a year ago today I was well into the process of shrugging away anyone and everyone from my life - high school and earlier - whose purity of word I didn't trust when they said that we would stay in touch, remain friends. In simpler words, a year ago today I was making myself into a loner out of choice, necessity, a portion of foresight, and a bias from depression's resultant unwillingness to pour any more love into relationships which I knew good and well would fail. I gave up on everyone and asked the few who claimed they should not be given up to prove it. They all knew that I would hold pure to the relationships which held pure to me, but I was asking for their sign first since I had already exhibited mine. For the record, I have "reunited" with three people from high school so far this entire year, and two I'm already almost completely dissociated from; the third is a close friend but a rare contact.

A year ago today, I was dying in the aftermath of a day where I could easily have died.

I was letting go of all that I was, surrendering all that I could and giving up on any semblance of friendship where there was not mature, pure love which I knew had greater worth and strength more unshakable than the distances between our respective schools in the ensuing fall. I had a car wreck that should have at the very least severely injured me, if not permanently scarred me or crippled me... or, possibly, killed me. I took a hit squarely in my driver door in a 1991 Toyota Camry - a car whose "side impact safety" was the metal door - from a 1996 Toyota Camry doing between 25 and 35 miles per hour, depending on whether or not the officer had arrived yet when the answer was given. My door came in 14 inches, my car skidded sideways out of control and somehow lifted up and over the drainage hole in the corner of the intersection, sliding into someone's grass and stopping short of plowing through a fence and a tree thanks to a fire hydrant which impaled - yes, impaled - the front passenger door. All four tires were flattened, two rims were hanging next to nothing, three doors were nonfunctional, two windows were shattered, my seatbelt (initially) was jammed, and I couldn't get the car turned off as fluids spewed all over the grounds outside our two cars. I frantically worked to get the key loose before finally surrendering the effort and, eventually freeing myself from the car, hauling myself out the window and getting away from the car, collapsing in the grass to one side. The wreck could have - and possibly (scientifically speaking) should have - killed me... and aside from a few cuts on my upper left arm which didn't collectively add up to six inches, I was unmarked as I walked away in a daze. To say that my world was turned upside-down by the event was an understatement; to say that I was in disbelief at the near-complete lack of concern, support, and affection I was shown in the aftermath is a worse one. I dropped my world save five friends and asked what little wanted to be picked back up to show me why.

I didn't pick anything back up; instead, I dropped a few more chips.

You see, a year ago today, I couldn't possibly have imagined being here. A year ago today, I didn't know yet that I had qualified as a National Merit Finalist, didn't know that (as a result of that title) I would have the ability to pay fully for my education here at college (between UK's scholarship for NMF and state scholarship money), didn't know that I would be living in this dorm... I didn't know where I was going, what I would be doing, or why I wanted to do it. I had nothing to look forward to but faith and nothing to leave behind but the same absence which I faced in the summer ahead, some of the lowest months of my life. I didn't have any scheme for getting through any days, much less all the days ahead, save to take life one moment at a time, since it was all I had the capacity to do for a while, since although the wreck failed to injure me physically, it paralyzed me spiritually and demanded a headlong leap to Christ, to the faith that I should have been within all along.

I figured I had nothing left to lose, and I leapt.

I still have some strings attached and I in no way claim to be perfect... but I know that for all I let go of in trust, one year later, God has revitalized and built up to higher levels than anything I could ever have found or created on my own. I don't know yet for sure what career I want, nor who my wife will be, nor the answer to where I'll be in 2020 (and why teachers keep asking is beyond me). I don't understand why some things have happened, and I understand fully why others occurred. A year's time can do so much... and yet, for so many "years" of a year's time, one at a time, it did so little.

A year ago today... I was dead. I should have died but didn't, then couldn't live on so I died, and now through that death I live a far better life than I ever could have had or should have deserved. I still have many things to die to, and I may yet be asked to die to this life of blessing to enter something else; I can't say, and I don't claim to be ready for it yet, but I understand now that as mortifying and agonizing as the death has been... it has been worth every day of the emotional downfall which I suffered to reach this place.

I heard a piece this Easter morning where a man said, "It's Friday. Christ is dead, and that is the end. Sin has conquered. Death is victorious, and Satan's just laughing. ...but even now, Sunday's a-comin'." My Good Friday came with force that was anything but kind and loving and stopped me cold... and yet it was good, and it was loving in a method and to a depth which I could not understand. I died painfully, crying in my mother's arms as she clutched her baby, realizing that he could have been taken away from her, and in that brief blink of an eye a close mother-son relationship was brought that much closer. My family rallied to me, and all else fell away; I kept working and studying only out of necessity, because I was living a very long Friday... but Sunday was coming, a year ago today.

A little while back, the local newspaper ran a story of some men whose friend died far more agonizingly than the death I was spared... His blood loss pre-death was estimated at around 30%, his head contusions and puncture wounds were at least 40 in number, and the raw force of his impact with the objects of his own death flayed most of the skin from his arms and back, mortifying him to the point that his corpse still had the dried blood on his brow which he sweated. The images of the corpse were deemed to gruesome to even be placed into the paper, something the editors apologized for to a small degree after explaining themselves, and the story was either extremely pleasing or painfully moving to all who read the frontpage news that day... Then Sunday came, and Jesus got back up, walking out of his tomb... but the papers refused to cover that one. Why not? They couldn't get a hold of him, just the same way that Death could not, Fate could not, Sin could not... and Satan could not. Sunday came, and it came beautifully, cathartically, purging every doubt and every false piece of self from all who accepted Sunday. Sunday came, "a year ago today" for the year ago today a whole lot of years-ago-today ago.

I was living in Thursday, then I died and lived my Friday for far, far more than just that Friday... I leapt headlong off a cliff from which there was no return, into a life where there was no hiding and no faking, a place where there were open arms and loving friendships to be established around every corner which I checked. God was good, the people were great, my college studies were roughed through as best as could be handled, and I was grown and pruned, grown and pruned. My Friday kept coming back, but Sunday kept coming back to give me what Sundays He had to give, and Monday became the most beautiful day of the week, something that a year ago today I would never have dared to say.

As of Saturday the 14th, I have lived a year of my life which I never will have any logical reason to have except grace. I will never know the number of 14th's I have left to live until I die, and even then that answer won't be one I care to know. A year ago today, I couldn't see living through the end of the month, getting to the end of the next trial, suffering through the next workload in hopes that a hollow paycheck and empty, smile-accompanied bogusisms - called "friends" by mistake at the time - would compensate for the loss I took and the load I bore. I couldn't, they didn't, we wouldn't, I shouldn't... I can't. I surrendered to that, and continually surrender to it over and over now, reliving my Friday in small parts and small ways so that Sunday can reenter my heart to bring His healing and His Sunday, which is infinitely better than many of the ones which have elapsed since my first Friday.

Friday hurts. Friday will always hurt. Friday hurt a year ago, and Fridays will hurt for the rest of the years from now which I get... but I will always love my Sunday, and thus I hope to have the strength to face every Friday that Sunday gives me so He can be reached, two days and one heartbeat later.

My Sunday... My Jesus... I killed him a whole lot of years ago, asking His own Friday long before my own, and a year ago he got back in vengeful, passionate, jealous... perfect love which outweighed anything and everything I ever have done and will do.

A year from now... the only place that I care about being is a place that I can again type, "A year ago today," with a smile on my face wrought by sheer disbelief at how much greater that, "A year ago today,"'s meaning will be than the one I write of now. I hope to be in a place where my growth in the next year makes this year pale, where my Jesus... my Sunday and bringer of my Sundays through my Fridays... is so much closer to my heart than He is now that tears come to my eyes the next time I type, "A year ago today."

Just like they are now. A year after a year ago today...

PTSD

2006-03-09T13:24:00.000-05:00

This is written in dedication to the many soldiers who give of themselves day in and day out - or who once gave of themselves, to whatever level of sacrifice - in the hopes that they find the peace back here at home that they fought so hard to maintain and longed so often to feel one more time.

===

The turn of the tide
A crystal sheet of warm, transparent blue
Calling you home
Cradling you in its arms as frothy sprays mix with peaceful drips

Warm sand massages every stride you take
As if the very road paved for you invites you into itself
Soft cushions beyond the number of stars in the sky
Catching you as you dive
Tickling you as you run
Embracing you as you collapse
Soothing you as you relax

Thoughts of salt as bitter or stinging did not come from here;
Thoughts of salt as bitter and stinging could not be absent from here.

Linger longer than you must, yet refuse to linger;
Keep your head down and your eyes closed, though not from relief,
For we must be ready as one, hearts as one and bodies as many...

Loving embraces and soothing winds,
Inhaling peace and exhaling memory...
This is the place that care forgot;
These are the arms of heaven, welcoming the weary home.
Peace neverending, loving screams neverending, contentment... omnipresent...

Memories arise and linger before excorcism...

An array of three-dimensional crucifixes
Sprinkled across the landscape cautiously, intent clear in their placement
The soothing waves lap at the chocolate hues of saturated sand
These are the arms of heaven, welcoming the weary home;
These are the trenches of hell, filled with loving screams neverending, agony... omnipresent...

Warm red sand massages every stride you take
As if the very road paved for you invites you into itself
Soft cushions beyond the number of new stars in the sky tonight
Trapping you as you drown
Resisting you as you run
Embracing you as you collapse
Soothing the many who scream, who fall...

Uphill, the turn of the tide.
Behind, a crystal sheet of warm, translucent indigo,
Carrying them home... calling you home,
Cradling the many in its arms as frothy sprays mix with lifeless drips...

This is the place that forgot to care.

Cradling you in their arms as loving puffs of air tease the nostalgic drips,
Their loving arms pulling you closer...
They, your companionship amidst the exorcism,
They are the ones who forgot to care what you have seen;
Theirs are the arms of forgetfulness, the cleansing waters of release.
Here in this place, in this hour,
They call you home in the final way, giving to you what the world around suggests and your heart yearns for:
Loving embraces and soothing winds,
A fresh breath of peace from a supply neverending,
A "final" exhale of the nightmares, both to recall over and over... and over...
This is the place that care forgot;
Theirs are the arms of heaven, welcoming the weary home.

Cold

2006-03-02T00:03:00.000-05:00

An older piece... but again, a good one. :-) Enjoy.
===================================

A breath of promise

A barren wasteland seems to reach out
Gasping for air filled with rain
Trembling as the heat builds
Hesitating in the resurrection as life breathes

Life is completing its cycle at long last
The final season of "to everything" comes
A finite eternity has concluded

The space for Death to pass over dissolves...

The weathered, sun-marred surface is graced by silk threads
Charges leap between in a flawless conductor of energy
A sheathed, forged sword finds its heartguard
A soft caress pushes back the tides from the red

I cannot pull her close enough
My arms around her small waist
A gentle caress kisses her neck with a palm
Cloth on cloth, heartbeats align
Rolling slowly as eyes meet in love
Heads tilt away and together

Worth more than the oxygen I breathe
Worth drowning the lungs in
If only for a larger straw to taste her with
A soft, gentle kiss
Open mouth, insert soul
Just cradle her head in your hands... and breathe...

Exhale... Gasp... Pull her closer and breathe deep

Exhale the cold night air
Expel the fantasies of the stars
Resheathe your tears in cold
Sighs drown the lungs

...I could not pull her close enough.

For unlike when she held me,
The midnight winds kiss my face... and it is cold.

No giving up now

2006-02-21T23:38:00.000-05:00

For my old friend... We may have fallen out of touch a while ago now from the inability to keep in touch, but that doesn't change that you are a great man who I hope comes around, rather than trying to take your life again the way I heard you did Sunday night... I will be praying for God to make his love for how amazing you are real to you in a deep, unfathomable way that will leave the tears to pour down your face and healing to wash over your soul. I write this hoping that some day soon I find you in His arms, which will be more than enough for you the way it once was more than enough for me in your shoes...
=========================
Gauntlet
Cold, constricting, tunnel-visioned...
Watching steamed exhales do what you cannot:
escape the emotional tourniquet.

Mortified
Staring down lose-lose;
"Checkmate in three," so pick your poison,
for all roads hence from this reach Dis:
A self-employment of the Styx;
The shivers of the moon's cold, hard reflector;
Seeing but not watching, gazing beyond...
[CUE: Fade to black], it reads, stamped in black.
Polarized, beating at the polar fisherman's soles,
screaming with all left in yours,
terrorized... terror-eyed...

Knowing the air runs out soon, do you exhale?

Screaming for help yet fearing to hope,
warm in your stylish jacket,
the only thing to embrace you now.
Savor your last conversation:
laughing quietly to Yourself,
a harmony of hopeless giggling and tears' soliloquy.

Do any of them care, or do you care for any of them?
Rhyming in paradox,
questioning in paranoia,
thinking in paranormal,
fading from the parallel with reality...
The road glitters with damnation's jewels:
a future you should look forward to
a past that took away your soul -
Take away your eyes, now! -
a footstep that crumbles as you use it...
This is your one parallel.

"I (too) know why the caged bird sings"-
...His throat can't scream anymore.

Exhale; surrender.
Revel in the victory over fear and weep...
Weep to harmonize Lucifer's crescendo.
The score reads you your underscore,
which without eyes you cannot see,
without ears you cannot stop listening to, and
without hands you stop the composer of.
Your sentence is written, but your ending is sealed;
your will They'll invoked, but your will he revokes...

Blink.

Your cheek is still icy,
as is the feeling of pants drenched to your leg.
Eyes are looking down, seldom crossed by a fish...
Beat.
Kick.
Screaming furiously and kicking harder as he waves,
Terrified to go on trying, but choosing "lose" over "lose",
Just pray "lose" means "win" in a way you can't see.
Crunch. Crunch.
Blue ice turning red like firey lungs inside...
Drink the water but do not breath.
Choose damage over damnation.
Crunch. Crunch.
The old is broken away as you cheer furiously,
Transmitting your newfound hope and predominant fear with a look,
Beseeching the onset of pain ag-
A crunch and a strike to the head truly lets it flow...
Red and clear:
Painful warmth over cold crowns,
Pincushioned lungs.

I know why the caged bird sings...
It sees no escape but hopes nonetheless.

Knowing the air runs out... exhale... and breathe in the next breath.
Live no further, live no shorter;
Simply find strength to sustain hope for the next moment's strength and hope,
and allow the rest to find you,
feeding you five loaves and two fish
beside a fire... so warm...
amidst loving arms that much warmer.
=========================

Slam: Happenings

2006-02-20T14:39:00.000-05:00

I hadn't written in so long... I was starting to wonder (and, in part, worry) if it was ever going to resurface. *smiles* It did. Oddly and unexpectedly, but it did. No title (yet?). Perhaps going off the TFK song, "Art of Breaking"? Enjoy.

Surmised then formed;
Devised then born,
Advised and conformed,
Revised and reborn.

Shattered and crushed,
Battered and flushed;
Tattered then touched,
Flattered and plushed.

Shaken for remaking,
Broken for retaking,
Made through unmaking...
Saved by the aching.

Emptied, congealed,
So wounded...
So healed.

Protected and claimed,
Now whole where once maimed,
First focused and tamed
So I, lost, am now named.

Neglecting reflecting connectings with past,
Alive I must live for the first who is last,
The healing that healed what was broken with wounds...
Living with hope, living to a different beat.

Peaces of Lore

2006-02-14T15:42:00.000-05:00

(A poem from a long time back... I'm actually published with this one in an anthology called Labors of Love, though good luck finding it. :-P)

Yet Without Love
I can have the looks of a Sexiest Man Alive
The physique of a World's Strongest Man
The appeal of a hunk
The personality of a Prince Charming
Yet without love, I am but another man.

I can have the wisdom to give good advice
The foresight to make wise decisions
The passion to care for others
The friendliness to befriend hundreds
Yet without love, I am but another acquaintance.

I can have the gift of Discernment
The prophetic visions of ancient Levites
The gift of tongues to reach the masses
The gift of giving to support the Church
Yet without love, I am but another Christian.

I can long
to hold her in my arms with all my might,
I can dream
of caressing her silky hair as she smiles, half-asleep,
I can wake up
to the presence of where she will be, in my arms,
I can envision
the way she'll look the first time I see her,
I can try to visualize
giving her that one gift that no one else can,
And I can pray
for the day we meet to come,
soon,
But until then...

...I am yet without love.

With These Hands...

2006-02-11T00:59:00.000-05:00

Of late I've taken to creating decals on my hands (tatoo-styles) as a sort of artistic representation of people I'm praying for. (I've taken pictures of two of them so that I can eventually put them up to give you a better idea of what they look like, Amy.) Why? I really don't know... I'm not exactly an awesome artist, and yet I have a hunger for art and a passion that leads to a skill I have no training to justify having. I pray for those I don't know the needs of but pray that He who does is helping them in the ways that I cannot; it simultaneously acts as a symbol of my resolve to give away the things I shouldn't be holding as somehow mine to heal, an ever-present reminder to pray for those I care for and love, and a small testimony of my faith for those around me who look past that it looks freaky to ask about the motive - my faith - behind it.

At the same time, however, it almost seems childish to be drawing on myself, no matter the purpose. This isn't a tatoo; this is me taking a bunch of Sharpies and etching on my skin a temporary mark to remind me of a temporary relationship in a temporary state of existence, and the monotony of the instability of it all seems frustrating at times. Those I have held dearest over the years, on the whole, I have lost, and that's a relatively intimidating psychological battle to overcome, whether or not the mindset is "immature"; after enough times that your "closest friend" walks out of your life without looking back to see if I heard the door shut behind them and realized they left... it gets a little bit harder every time to stick a freshly damaged heart back out there. To a certain regard I protect myself, but at the same time, a large portion of the person I am comes from my openness and honesty about my short-comings and my discerned opinions; where to draw the line between how many people I should keep caring about and how many I should just let fall away... The fact that I even have to question that part of myself is frustrating in its very nature, given the immaturity of the thought, and yet it is there, an ever-present, fully tangible sense that must be weighed against the many others within my heart every time a choice is made. It seems childish and yet the admittance of it as such almost redeems me somehow, leaving me forgiven but not cchanged...

I don't even know how to express it, really; I just feel the presence of a deep duality to it all and in some ways that scares me, I suppose. I know that God has been more than enough to carry me this far and He will continue to let me wake up in the morning of every day I am meant to live; from the day my life should have ended until now, every day that I have risen to meet the sun and the storms has been solely through his grace, and within that abundance I have to focus on living my life, on thinking my every thought. Perhaps a duality should always exist within to a reasonable degree to remind myself of the old, to better define the better things through a comprehension of the darkness; at the same time, however, I must hear its testimonies without yielding to them, meditating within the many facets of myself without wallowing within any particular portion. I am a new creation, and that in and of itself is completely beyond my ability to finitely explain or comprehend except that to say that I am no closer to the man I was yesterday than I am to the man I will be tomorrow. A certain level of this life I live now must be walked in faith and not in understanding, in trust hard-pressed to yield rather than strength and capacity hard to press to yield. My breaking point is thick and buried deeply, anchored and cemented, and yet the tiniest poision within can slowly eat its way outward from the inside to kill the mightiest oak, and what good is a visage of strength and compassion and support which has no substance, a stature without a soul? None.

I made the "mistake" of asking to be taught dependence and humility... I regret it now and yet cherish every moment of it, loathing the pain and the days where I am barely enough and yet savoring the days where I am far less than enough. I almost long to live in the periods of dismay and stress - which still feel somewhat more natural - just so I can find myself that much more easily capable of the final surrender necessary to tap into a strength infinitely beyond my own and a wisdom and love and compassion which take away the very breath of my life and give it back again.

I look upon the empty cross, forgetting what my life has cost,
And wipe away the crimson stains and dull the nails that still remains.
More and more I need you now; I owe you more each passing hour...
Battle between grace and pride given up not so long ago,
So steal my heart and take the pain, wash my feet and cleanse my pride,
Take the selfish, take the weak, and all the things I cannot hide,
Take the beauty, take my tears,
This sin and soaked heart - make it yours...
Take my world apart; take it now,
Take it now and serve the ones that I despise,
Speak the words I can't deny,
Watch the world I used to know fall to dust and blow away...

Perhaps there is a certain level of the childish nature which will always be borne within me, but it does not make me a lie, somehow; if anything, it is the lie that is not a part of who and what I am, and I understand that more with every day that I live in this new life. My short-comings fail to allow me to see past themselves, begging that I linger in the maddening sorrow of the fact that I am only human, that I have disappointed someone; in truth, all that anyone can ever really be is all that they were created to be, and that means that everyone will be a disappointment to at least someone. That's truth. So...

For now, let the decals decorate my hands; when the feeling of need to bear them and bear my brothers and sisters in such a way fades, so will they. "Say what you mean and mean what you say, because the people who mind don't matter, and the people who matter don't mind." Let others ask and hear of the faith behind the flaunt, the depth behind the shallow reflections on the surface; these are emblems of the love I bear in my heart for my God and for my friends, and surely nothing can be something I should be more proud of than that.

Beauty sonnet

2006-02-09T15:09:00.000-05:00

Could anything seduce so much as just
One female taunting oh so sensuously?
Her figure sways from legs to thighs to bust
In motions flowing oh so sexually.
From sculpted chest, physique well-tanned and curved,
A flowing form transcends to heav'nly eyes
That, nestled in that face, cause men to sweve
To meet her whims as though all hypnotized.
Then down, past where the passionate, beating heart
Lies safe betwixt soft breasts of ecstasy,
Her legs are long, attractive in an art
Of sponsoring - not fullfilling - fantasy
But of more worth than these great beauties stays
Her heart of gold whose morals know no sways.

I wrote this what seems like an eternity ago now, but a friend had something posted which made me remember, so I dug it up... Enjoy.

quote it freely

2006-02-08T21:02:00.000-05:00

Jesus is still lord in the flames;
He soothes my wounds with wine He bleeds.

Simple words

2006-02-06T23:32:00.000-05:00

The greatest quotations from the course of humanity's brief existence on this earth seem to be defined as the power of a thousand words summated in a well woven phrase of few words... That's why I think I got an answer tonight to why I haven't been at peace with myself, why I struggle with holding judgement over myself too long at times while other times I shrug off the hardest blows of life and keep right on moving...

"Where are you at peace? Where should you be at peace?"

That was it. In a single fabric of hypotheticals woven through current experiences, my answer was laid out before me to sort out for myself with ease... Where I (will) find my peace and where I should be finding my peace are completely different places in my mind; in friends' or lovers' arms, peace exists quietly and is heavily present, filling every fiber of your being with desire to linger in the moment for longer periods of time than you can, but in God's hands, there should be a peace of such a far greater magnitude that nothing else compares to it, given that no other love compares to His, something that I often forget - or disagree with, at times - amidst the business of my life until I think back over the blessings He has given me and the ways that I've been brought through so many things. Where I think I'll be at peace someday and where I should be at peace everyday are almost entirely exclusive ideals, and yet my loyalty all too often lies to the former rather than the latter in my hopes for the future. That needs to change, and although in some ways it is a simplistic change, it is very much a dramatic one as well.

I am a truth-seeker, however, and God loves that in me, I believe... I will find Him more and more reassuring of this latest truth as I search more deeply; I believe that.

new to blogspot

2006-02-05T15:34:00.000-05:00

Hurrah for first posts (well, on blogspot, anyways)...

New beginnings are a beautiful thing. You come to a point in your expedition - whether in faith or in deed, state of mind or expression of spirit - where the old begins to be torn away, and the agony is overwhelming as bloodied chunks of self are torn away from the outside; slowly, though, the pain begins subsiding in a sort of out-of-body, epherial vision as you see the true core within being revealed, and one cannot help but stare in wonder and accept the pain of the catharsis to grow closer to a state of purity. Even as the shao'lin channels the pain away from yourself, you cease to care about the old slowly as branches without fruit, ties without reason, and loyalties without reward are trimmed away in a process that transitions from agonizing to brief, wincing shots of pain that are recognized as reciprocated by the loving hands administering them. Superego and superfluous are both reconciled through the remolding of clay that chose to dry itself off and rest only partway through the metamorphosis, and the process of the master humbling the medium is slow to bring the clay back to resignation. Carefully and skillfully, the processor reiterates the purpose behind His process, and a new beginning arises as freshly rededicated resolve controls the being within, begging to be torn again, to be honed and refined anew; the old fails to matter anymore as all else falls away except the desire for further transition, for more cathartic purging of the self to expose the being that should be and expel the being that was.

I still have uncertainty about where the process is leading me, but that is part of the intent: to hone my trust and my faith in the belief that I am being grown into a better man for tomorrow than I was yesterday... than I was last night, before the first time in a long time that a friend didn't walk away in an hour of severe need. I don't care for the old anymore; nothing seems to matter now except getting through every day doing what must be done and taking the rest of the time to reach out to the source of myself more excruciatingly, more hungrily, more... and more...

Too many times I have excused myself from the hardest realizations by looking to the tough decisions that I have made correctly, to the times that I have been the source of healing to others and the administration of new hope in friendships, trusts, faith, and tomorrow... Now I see more clearly, less like the reflection on transparent glass and more like an eye-to-eye conversation. I have never been the source of anything, but rather the instrument in its administration, never the administration, but rather the funnel to send the Healer's energies and wishes to His beautiful children. I am a beautiful creation and have believed in myself as such, but I too often have been my best critic, knowing when to praise choices I have made as admirable and when to grind myself into the pavement for shameful ones... I have to refocus now on looking at myself as I see others: faithfully, lovingly, respectfully. There is no harm in critiquing oneself, but there is poison in allowing it to linger.

Should I lose those I love around me, things will ache in their absence like gums missing teeth: healing slowly but still regretting the transition for a while, with a slight fondness for the substance now in absence that will never fully fade. Even so, I cannot allow that to distract me from the life I must live now; should all else be torn away from me and I spend my life alone, would I live on happily? If I cannot reach such a place, then surely those whom I love who look to me will be incapable of finding in my companionship that which they most need to elevate and motivate themselves along in their own journeys, often far more similar to mine than I see.

I am mature... but I am maturing. "The Christian lifestyle is a complete recognition of the fact that I am, always have been, and always will be imperfect, and in that acceptance, there is a beauty to the fact that I am here, and the idealized image of what I can become in Christ is there, and although it is beyond what I will ever acheive, I will spend my life trying to draw closer to it, and to Him."

Every day that I live now is a miracle and has been for a long time now; ideally, they always have been, but it has been far more tangibly so since the wreck about 10 months ago. There are people who I lay hands on and pray for who have tears start flowing; there is Spirit in that now, and - since it subsequently must be so - in me. There are days when I feel numbed and in need of isolation from the world, and there are days that the emotional hunger for companionship is so physically tangible that it approaches sickening. There is growth and change as I am transformed by the daily renewing of my mind that I can't express in words or in emotions except to say that I am no closer to the man I was two nights ago than I am to the man I was eight months ago; they are both dead to me now, and I try to live every day cherishing every moment of the life that was given back to me.

For closure... some words from the song that was just playing: "Ever the Same", by Rob Thomas

"Fall on me;
Tell me everything you want me to be:
Forever with you,
Forever in me,
Ever the same...
Call on me;
I'll be there for you and you'll be there for me:
Forever it's you,
Forever in me,
Ever the same..."