be steady, baby.

...and when we get down to it, we realize that the only way to break off from these societal pressures placed on us is to step out. take that leap. do what you believe you should do - what you were made to do, not what others think is best.

branch. break. fork. sever yourself.

you get it.

i'm not saying this is easy.

the most frigid winter the soul will ever feel will blow in on the wings of fear. the fear of failure. the fear of rejection. chances need to be taken and hearts need to be broken to grow. to move. to learn. the trees ahead have to become larger and the ones behind have to become smaller.

it's important to realize that i'm not being a rebellious twenty-something. even the married ones, the trapped ones, the paralyzed ones. we all have to grow. whether that be learning how to knit a scarf or visiting a gravestone of a dead, once abusive father.

we have to do things we don't

want to do sometime or another.

this is how we grow.

we take chances.

we learn to love people

through strange circumstances.

go with it.

trees.

trees with roots, they grow;
into the starry night.
battered by the wind, by the rain, by the snow;
left bald by the fight.
trees with roots, they grow.

trees with roots, they grow;
not uncertain of the soil fromwhich they sprout.
a stately stance, of their past they know;
boisterous but lowly, high above the clout.
trees with roots, they grow.

the blues.

I'm not having an easy time. Life is hard.
I'm tired, and weary, and bruised up.
Things pile up and become to-do list after to-do list. Why?
I'm trying my hardest not to let wordly things own me.
But it's so hard to do that when wordly things are all you know,
and all you associate yourself with. I think Satan always
has his hand on the strings. He's whispering that I won't
amount to much. He's whispering that the things I care about
most are going to turn on me. He's telling me I need money -
lots of money - to find joy. And half the time, I'm believing it.

I know God is here. And I'm
faithful that He is teaching me things
through this garbage. But it's not easy to hear His voice.
It takes time, and discipline, and the will to shut off things.

God, just be here. Help me to find joy in trouble.
Help me to be a man about my mistakes.
Help me to know that it takes asking questions
to learn how to do something.

a collective.

it's not about the stains on your hands.
everyone's been through their share of trouble.
i leave perfection to my Creator.
forgive yourself. let Jesus' blood forever be a
reminder that you aren't, never were,
and never will be perfect. just accept it.

it's not about the strut.
the fact is, you're one of 6.7 billion people.
think about that. no. really. think about that.
we're equal. equal. no brand or talent or
salary or (what you think is the) ability to
verbally dismantle someone's barriers
will ever change you being just another
one of 6,700,000,000 faces.

we're humans.
we were delicately made by a selfless God.
a God who is above trend and politics.
a God who is above religion and money.

proverbs 22:2

as the ruin falls.

All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.
I never had a selfless thought since I was born.
I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through:
I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.

Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,
I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin:
I talk of love --a scholar's parrot may talk Greek--
But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.

Only that now you have taught me (but how late) my lack.
I see the chasm. And everything you are was making
My heart into a bridge by which I might get back
From exile, and grow man. And now the bridge is breaking.

For this I bless you as the ruin falls. The pains
You give me are more precious than all other gains.

-C.S. Lewis

real glory.

"Honesty is the best policy."

...Fascinating. What people neglect to add to that oh-so-simple phrase is "it will cut you deeper than any katana and will expose you greater than any reality show."

Literally, maybe one of the most difficult attributes to acquire. And I'm not so sure I've even had a taste of it. What a terrifying thought, you know? What does a life look like that is never shaken up? A man who does all the wrong things, only to be rewarded with all the wrong answers, lit up brighter than a Christmas tree in November, being forced to believe they are the right ones.

A good friend of mine recently told me "if you surround yourself with friends who don't think your shit stinks, find new friends."

I thought it was beautiful. I thought it was beautiful because it was crass, and to the point. Not to mention, I took a barrel-load from it.

What I learned from my friend is that honesty is the big brother of humility. If we could only receive a regular dose of honesty, we would be forced to stay humble. Like Raid to a cockroach, honesty is to arrogance. It suffocates any chance to ever become bigger than ourselves and our narcissism. This is, of course, in contrast to never receiving honesty in which one can never feel where his feet land. He would just continue to gallivant up this mythical hierarchal structure (eventually becoming his own King), never being told that the structure doesn't exist and that he's still in the same place he started.

I don't like the thought of praying hard for an honest environment, because I don't like the feeling of heartbreak. But I suppose the shadow really does prove the sunshine.

mold and ivy.

stagnant.

like a pond where the kids have long since seen and felt the tug of a fish on their pole.

they're grown up, on the way to nine-to-fives in shiny SUV's, coffee in hand, just suffocating for one more moment of childhood.

stagnant.

like a lover who can't take it anymore. the blistering, bleeding heart of one who never stops hearing that everything is going to be ok. who thirsts for reconciliation, but can't feel it. can't earn it. can't taste it because their other half is so enriched with their own pride that finding a cure means admitting they have a flaw.

idolatry.

here's what happens:

we've got our people. our ordinary, run-of-the-mill, broken, insecure people. these people occasionally have some sort of much sought after talent, but more times than not, they just know who they are and what they're about.

we take them, encrust them in gold, vocalize their credibility more than our own. sometimes they become god, sometimes they don't. sometimes they become who we want to become. sometimes we get so caught up in wanting to become them that we forget we weren't put on the earth to make a goal of becoming someone else. rather, we were placed here for a reason. a bigger, but an ironically simple one. because really, when we try to become like another ordinary, run-of-the-mill, broken, insecure person, all of those flaws usually blow up right in our faces, floating up to the surface like wreckage. it leaves nothing but disrespect for the person who we wanted to become, and a bad taste in the mouths of us.

maybe this is what Jesus meant when He talked about how we're so blessed to still have not yet seen Him, but still have faith.

riches to rags.

here's a liberating thought:

take whatever you think you're great at. whether it be a sport, communication of some kind, an instrument, the power to love. anything.

you're not the best at it. you may never be the best at it. there will always be another person that has been plotting and planning to become the best at whatever it is you're challenging them to. and, you know what? they'll take you every time with a smile on.

unfortunate, absolutely.
HOWEVER.

liberating, because atleast you'll never mosey around again being the main character of your own play.
liberating, because you will find that there will always be more knowledge than you can absorb, more strength than you can muster, more love than you can handle.

hope.

soon, i will sit and listen to a suited up fifty-something with no sense of skepticism. i will be adorned with a graceful charm, taking only his words to heart, not feeding my inner demons with doubts about how much money he has or if he really means what he says. i've got age on me, and it's tearing me down.

i will find a love and stick with it. sacrifices will be made, but every gash will be sewn up by this relentless greed to pursue what i was made to pursue. uncertainty can strangle a man, but mercy only shows up when she finds that you've thrown your heart into this again, and again, and again.

i'll find a good woman. our hands will touch and our heads will clash, but this one will be a God-given truth that even the most incredulous would applaud. forgiveness will find us time and time again, reminding us that a bond isn't made to be broken, beaten, nor bruised. rather, a gift from the heavens that God has sent to concrete his unshakable, incontestable existence.

i'm joyful in hope. and when the day is done - when every tear has dried, and every note sung - i thank my beautiful God for never failing to restore my hope in what is to come.

mouths to feed.

beat yourself into the ground.
welcome the callouses. let them moisten, let them swell, let them bleed.
you've got mouths to feed.
sweat and don't stop sweating.
work and don't stop working.
plant, reap, sow your seed.
you've got mouths to feed.



i hope to be half the man my father is.

sounds.

they drop like hammers. they float like hummingbirds.

from grandfathers to digitals.

been thinking about time recently. not so much on a scientific level. but on the other level. on the better level.

i hear about it from blues guys all the time. how it's always coming down on us. it's a kind of demise, really. i hate it, every now and then. i think because we're this nation built upon speed. see? the word. it even looks fast. we've always got to have the fastest something. and i'm not just talking about cars.

the other day i was in the supermarket, and it took me 45 minutes to buy a toothbrush. a toothbrush. why? because i wanted the one that would clean my teeth a pearly white in the least amount of time. i wanted the one that would do it overnight. i wondered silently if colgate would ever manufacture some sort of freak, robot brush that would put all of my plaque-related fears aside forever and ever and ever.

so i stopped myself. mainly, because i realized that i heard that thing. that thing that tells you to buy this or buy that, because it will fix you. "you want what we're selling, because it will complete you" is what supermarkets and malls promise their subordinates everyday. and i heard it. so i went off-brand and i still see no difference. which is a good thing.

things just need to slow down, man. i know i can't stop the clocks. but sometimes i wish the clocks would stop us and tell us to give up staring at them for a while. they would say that their minutes move fast, and their seconds even faster. and they would say that if we spend too much time listening to the crank - if we meditate upon each second that's ticked, and curse it for being gone, never to rear itself again - we may miss that something. that something that will dazzle or amaze us. that something that could, quite possibly, change us from the inside out.

john donne.

Batter my heart, three-person'd God ; for you
As yet but knock ; breathe, shine, and seek to mend ;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy ;
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

sunshine and marshmallows.

i've gotten somewhere.

i may be witnessing progress.

it may be too soon to call it that.

to avoid an explosion, let's just write it off as a good day.

supermarket wisdom.

i believe i may be falling in love with the theory of cynicism. let me rephrase that - optimistic cynicism. not because it sounds fancy, because it is a sharpener to my blade that has become so dull. in a world where people and ideas are black vertical bars trotting in their black vertical formations, i am that really annoying horizontal reddish-orange beam that scans and scans until some sort of blindness occurs.

but hang with me - the good part is coming. the part that doesn't make me look like a half-crazed hater.

like i said - the cynic in me is the same one who keeps me up to date. it keeps me fresh. i have a better understanding of things around me when i use cynicism. this theory paired up against a conventional thinking process produces nothing but question marks. but what i mean by all of it is that if you tear something down until you can't tear at it anymore, and a piece of it is still standing, you know it was a structure that was supposed to be erected. no matter if you like it or not. it's like once you point out every wrong thing, the right things just glow. they glow.

this idea has it's flaws. but what doesn't?

verbage.

i'm sick of spiritual cliches. all i really want is a new dictionary for Christianity... and i think curse words should be allowed.

orangy tan things.

say what you will. this man single handedly changed the face of pop music for the 13 generations to come.

...not to mention he makes boy george look like the terminator.

for sale.

one thing about modern society that really frustrates me is the fact that exploitation is totally consistent. not only totally consistent, but also totally natural. it's kind of sick, really. our world has gotten great at taking a product, or a message, or a belief - and reducing it down to a topic of conversation that lasts about as long as the conversation itself.

a material object becomes gossip. a movement becomes a memory. branching from the mundane all of the sudden becomes total abandonment of "normal" standards. and it's all because we literally chat it up for long enough that the idea doesn't make sense anymore. it's a numbing thing that will soon become dead.

i recently grabbed an email from a non-profit dedicated to making the world aware of the atrocities that occur in Africa everyday. not something to be taken lightly, however, the email was composed of apparel. trendy sweatshirts with trendy designs. it's scary to think how many people will wear that sweatshirt and not contribute to the cause. because contributing to the cause will be taken over by too much talking and not enough doing.

i really wish i could exploit Jesus as much as i exploit having gone somewhere, or having met someone famous. but i hope to avoid exploiting Jesus to the point of nonsensical stagnancy. because he is, in fact, anything but that.

no. thank YOU, dr. doolittle.

to tell the truth, i really hate working for someone that's too nice. i would much rather someone tell me to get it done, than for another man to follow up that same phrase with "please." for all you gutter divers out there, leave the homo erotic entendre to the side.

i'm just much better under pressure. which is why, up until about a week ago, i really didn't appreciate my job.

i've been shooting lately for the most bizarre resume a company can get their hands on. so far, i'm pretty close to owning the blue ribbon. my latest acquisition is a vet's assistant at a little place called "Dr. Doolittle's Animal Care." I swear to you that this is my boss' real name. the irony kills me.

anyways. i didn't like my job. i didn't like what it entailed and i didn't like the people. so i told on them to God. expecting a much different outcome, things one-eightied and for the first time in a while i experience spiritual honesty (no, not the self-help book). i told Him i didn't like where I was at. I boiled in self pity and thought that since i'm such a contributor to society, i should be in atleast a high rise working for an oilman somewhere. as it turns out, my insides are rotting with pomp.

what happened next was great. i was finally leveled out with every other person on the planet. i experienced equality. it was blissful, you might say.

God showed me things. I began to appreciate, truly appreciate, the aroma of pizza and garlic bread at an Italian joint every time i would walk a (let's call them) patient. I had a meal that night in the same restaurant. I sat down with a large pizza and a beer and it was one of the best meals i've ever had. sincerely. I then began to revel at the fact that God creates people, not normal people, but beautiful human beings that can care so much about something other than themselves that they would work a blistering 12 hour shift for 6 days out of the week and still somehow come out on top, exposing that they actually love what they do.

God, keep showing me these beautiful things. may i never take for granted the simple delights you've provided us.