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.