I have lost my muse

I have not written and for good reason. The only things in my head at the moment are dull and mundane. It concerns me to be in such a place of creative draught. My sad states no longer inspire me either. So here I wait looking for a crack in reality to jump into a dream a revelation. Part of me wants to put it all behind me and say those were childish games. I guess the good news is I can't I have to hold onto the fragment of something other then this. The bad news is it tortures me in the meantime as I try to beat it back into submission.

Here's to the lonely dreamers, the misunderstood, the quiet ones, the loud ones, all of us really stuck in a world that is not sufficient.

Walking Slowly Home

I am surprised at how dull I am in comparison to how highly I think of myself. Last night I was humbled by the tenderness of a hug. I wish that I was as strong as I make people think, I wish that I could blame this all on other people letting me down, I wish all of this was easier. Life just isn't supposed to work that way. After two years of making drastic changes in my life, I have finally worn myself out enough so as only to be able to sit at the feet of Jesus and hope He can make sense of some of this. I was surprised as I sat in my desperation how quickly He responds and how simply. He came without judgement, explanation, demands, formulas, just an embrace. I needed a hug on the inside, a touch where fingers can't go. Only the sharp accuracy of the Holy Spirit could cut through all this shit I am trying to tread just to keep my head above water. And there I was bare before Him and I know it is only the beginning because even as I sit here and write this I wonder what I have to do to get back there or how I can make my life more consistant. But there was none of that it was just a simple revelation that came of how much I have and continue to screw things up and how much I need saving. I sense the deep beauty of this love and I am scared but this world has nothing left to offer me but the backdrop to my slow walk home.

I am not sleeping, I am not awake.

I still have my eyes open at 1:05 a.m. on Friday morning stuck in the megapixels of cyber crap. I am living vicariously through the instantaneous information that comes at the bidding of my fingertips. It is all bullshit I am firing electrodes to some of the synapses in my brain so as to feel stimulated, connected, cultured, alive. But here my body sits and my sould tells me otherwise. Yet I continue to write this in hope that I will be heard and someone will come to the rescue. I am addicted to this shadow of a fragment of an imagianary life... pretty low. I want to be one of the people everybody is watching live their lives hoping one day they can imitate whatever it is that makes them envious of my living. Then I want to turn to them shake them hard and tell them to grab their coat get on their feet and start living their own damn life.
There is more then this I know it, I am going to find it even if it takes to my last breath. No doubt tomorrow I will wake up and still buy into the American drip of a dream but the difference is I am no longer in my comatose state. The anesthetic of your silver lined lies is wearing off and though I feel the burn of your barbed misgivings, I am determined to let you have my flesh, feast on it if you will. I REJECT YOU WORLD POWER! There is a deep magic of eternity that you know nothing about, a sweet balm to my soul that you cannot touch or taint.
Jesus only your strong and steady hand can minister the salve of Truth. Oh that I would have the courage to face the atrocity of my condition and the widsom to know and accept your way as the one that cure this disease.

There is nothing

I have no image for this season to make it look more beautiful or tragically artisitc, I have no beautifully poetic words to make this seem deep or interesting, I only have the pain that drives me to find a solution. I wish I could turn it into something nice to hear about but it isn't. My life is a painful mystery and I realize that I have been living in such a way as to find someone or something who could unlock some sort of peace or beauty or just understanding so I could come to terms with my plight, but I haven't found that yet. I thought Christianity would be it, being the natural human zeal of it all, and I fear my zeal is failing. I have treated Jesus as a make shift "Santa Clause, or a pop psychologist" but He is Lord; a word that doesn't even fit into my vocabulary in its right sense. Some tell me, this is part of the process and, it is good that you recognize it, but I know my heart. I have come close to God and counted the costs, I have weighed and measured, and the truth is I am a coward. "Self" haunts me, I still believe the lies fed to me on my silver spoon, and I continue to tell God it is too hard to live a life devoted to something I can't feel or see.
Even now I feel a tightening in my stomach as images of "The Passion" flash in my head and I know that I don't know what true sacrifice is. I am tortured by the oscilation from world to eternity and back again, and I long just to get off this spinning wheel even if it is just to settle; at least that is how I feel at the moment. I am a missionary, I have given all I know up to prove maybe to myself or to the world or maybe even to God that "religion" will save us. That is not how it all started however, I can't really remember that part but I was never a supporter of religion or duty, so I must have had a change of heart towards the person of Jesus Christ, where did that resolve go?
I have no where else to turn, I have to hang on for my very survival. I need to meet the eyes of a man named Jesus and I need to know it is His gaze that make all the wrongs right. I need to know that it is more then behavior reform, more then religion, better then anything I can get here on earth. To be honest I don't really know where else to go or what else to do. But lucky for me I dont have any other viable options. So here is to being so desperate that I just have to wait. Here is to the desert where I can only thirst for the tender whisper of my God. Please pray that I will be made new and free in the life that God so freely offers to breathe on me. I don't know what I am doing wrong but I pray that this is not it. There is something that needs to break. I am tired of trying I just want to rest and trust in the arms of my Father, I want to even know Him really as Father. I desperately want to know Jesus as husband. There are so many things I know He promises but somewhere between the promise and the search I have been left wanting. Only God can help me now.

By Candlelight

Things seem so much more inspired, romantic, slow by candlelight. Being in Darwin has reminded me to slow down. Breathing has come to my attention again the deep sweet scent of air that is appreciated. It has been brought to my attention again that in light of eternity, our lives here are but a vapor so brief and fragile. I don't want to spend any of my time worrying or wishing for things that arent here. They say the only earthly time that can touch eternity is the present moment because that is where action is and the ability to co create with God.
If it takes candlelight to remember the sweet life that I get to enjoy because of Jesus' great sacrifice then I will invest in a life supply. I will admit I am not very good at staying in this place but I realize it takes practice. So I will try to take time to close my eyes breathe in deeply and take a second, more careful look at the life that has been trusted to me.

Blossom

I once had a revelation that we don't descriminate against flowers. I was walking down the road one day and I love nature anyways but, I noticed all the different kinds of flowers. I had the realization that we don't think some flowers are not acceptable because their stems are to long and skinny, or their petals are too round and soft. Albeit different flowers envoke different emotions and are used for different occasions and may even have a fonder place in your heart then some but to each his own.
I find that women are a lot like flowers different shapes and sizes draw out different emotions etc. Yet we usually have a clear picture in our minds of what is beautiful.

I have fought my whole life to be beautiful and I still don't know what it means. First I wanted to be beautiful in my dad's eyes but he was too preoccupied with women dancing on the tables. Then I tried to learn beauty from my mother but I look like my dad and she was the typical don't have to try pretty. Then I wanted to please my friends in school, finally I got a boyfriend and I wanted him to think me the most captivating thing on earth so I tried to figure out what the most attractive thing is to a teenage boy so that quickly turned into sex.

I have dyed my hair blonde cut it short straightened it (I have naturally brown curly hair). I spent every penny on keeping up the facade of cool well put together cutting edge woman, when I had no idea what a woman really is. I joined different clubs for the impression they made, I hung with the brains the cheerleaders the jocks and the student government. I was and am an emotional junkie just trying to find my next fix. I need to feel loved appreciated important and currently the only way I really know how to do this is by comparison and approval of man. There is a problem with that it isn't how we were designed.

When I realized I would not be the next Heidi Klum, or nobel peace prize winner, I quickly rejected mainstream anything and prided myself on being a scenester wherever that scene may be. You know the cats I am talking about the ones who have made it trendy not to be trendy.

Now I am coming out of trying the religous hat on and man have I learned some valuable lessons. I know how to speak Christainese now, I can find my way through the books of the Bible, I know the difference between denominations, I can look like I am worshipping well, but even that didn't give me the fullfillment I need. I can recongnize and I know not even fully that I need Jesus the man the divinity. The funny thing is I have Him and He is waiting on me. I often wonder if the grueling process is just how it goes or if I am being stubborn. Why can't I have a conversion like Paul's?

So the point is well I am not sure there is a point but the point is I want to be, I need to be, free in who I was created to be. I want to be a flower confident in my creation and purpose. I want to simply exist reflecting glory. I want to bloom unashamedly with not a thought to the withering that follows. I don't know how this is done maybe it doesn't happen this side of Heaven.

I will get this! ""Then the time came when the risk it took to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." -Anais Nin

Faceless Confessions

I don't know where to begin this post. It started by spending too much time on the computer, watching too many movies, dredging up old memories, and fantasizing about the future. I am really hopeless at living in the moment. Now seems worse then ever mostly because I am aware of it and it is shocking. So I will try, mostly for my sake to convey what this is about. If at any point you get confused or bored the picture should suffice.

I am currently faceless. I have no idea where I fit, who I am, where I am going, where I come from, etc. Everything is just suspended in time it seems. I thought I could define myself by religion morals laws good works. I have also tried to define myself by someone else, materialism, popularity, intelligence, talent. None of it sticks. Looking back now I can clearly see I prayed a dangerous prayer not so long ago, that nothing would satisfy me but God and not only that but it would taste bitter to me like drinking a tall glass of sand on a hot day. Well at least I know God listens.

I have been antsy, frustrated, lonely, bitter, angry, confused, childish, etc. all because God listens to me and knows this is the best for me, I really need to believe that. I compare, I judge, I am independent, rebellious, opinionated, I hide behind countless things and it is all disintigrating before my eyes.

This picture better describes my understanding of myself and my place in this world then words ever could. The feeling is like that of when I just don't know what else to do so I spin until I feel sick cause I would rather the world fade into a blurred carousel of confusion then have to deal anymore.

I will be better at the end of this. I will know my identity in Christ and be satisfied. One thing I do know about myself is I have nothing left but Jesus, I can't give up on this because I will cease to exist.

So here is to finding ones reflection more clearly each day in the mirror of I AM. I wish it were fast and painless but it isn't and I am holding on to the hope of the unseen the unimaginable. Pray that all will stop spinning and I will find myself loved and resting in the infinite. I will wake from this horrible dream.

The Paradox of Trials

I have turned to images, expressions, music, and sometimes silence to help me better understand things where words just don't belong. This imparticular image I found on the wall of a building as I walked the streets of Darwin. She was just there frozen in her affliction, black tear resting on her despondent cheek. It has such a sense of motion, it made me spin into a series of concentric thoughts... What happened to this beauty to cause a look that can make my insides want to tear? How could one so capture the sorrow of a soul with cheap black spray paint on a white cement wall? What more perfect medium then the cold stone and the black and white of pain? What happened after that moment captured in time did her despair swollow her up or did she breathe in deeply and collect the pieces and start again?

On my journey of faith I have pondered many times the sorrows of this world; both my own and the general human race. So often the question is asked by non-believers and believers alike, "Why?", to all the suffering and sorrow. I still don't know why but here are some thoughts I have collected.

"The more sorrow one encounters, the more joy one can contain."

" God didn't promise days without pain, laughter without sorrow, sun without rain, but He did promise strength for the day, comfort for the tears, and light for the way."

"God weaps with us so we can one day laugh with Him."

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you experience various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. But endurance must do its complete work, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing." James 1:2-4

"Sorrow makes us children again." Ralph Waldo Emerson

"I assure you whoever does not welcome the Kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." Mark 10:15

It is humbling and mind boggling really to even begin to get your head around this. I just pray I am never to busy trying to understand it to walk in the faith of an empty hand. We have a priest that suffered great sorrow who can and does intercede for us. "My sould is swallowed up in sorrow-to the point of death." Matt 26:38.Oh, that our sorrows of this world would bore out wells to hold the joy and freedom that Jesus bought for us, and we might begin to understand the sweetness of that love and sacrifice. "So you also have sorrow now. But I will see you again. Your hearts will rejoice, and no one will rob you of your joy." John 16:22.

When will You be enough for me? Forgive my adulterous heart that causes us both pain.

I am afraid

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in all of us. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

We just don't get it do we?

Lonely?

"As soon as we are conscious we discover loneliness" C.S. Lewis. What he failed to mention is the divide seems to grow deeper as you grow older. As I write this I wonder what will people think if they read this...helpless, needy, desperate, and that is fine but it is deeper then that. My loneliness comes not from a lack of people but a lack of understanding of many things. I have tried my whole life to fit somewhere and in result I am quite chameleonic. So as I make plans to pick up my life yet again and say good bye to the friends I have made and the roots I have tried to plant, I wonder if I ever have known home at all. Now this could be quite depressive or I could see it as my God's gracious reminder that I was not designed for here. No doubt that is not very comforting in the midst of it all but when I stop and take a second to breathe and allow myself to dream then and only then am I relieved that the best is yet to come.

A Long Road Home

I dont know who looks at this but if you do you have gotten glimpses of the twists, turns, cracks, and crannies along the way. I briefly get a glimpse of the present path I am standing on and recognize it just has to be part of it regardless of how wrecked it looks. Sometimes there are roadsigns sometimes I wonder if I lost the trail somewhere along the way, but the further I go it is increasingly lonely and uncharted. I often question if it is worth it and then the sense of adventure and curiosity gets the best of me, saying, "If I just go a little further what if I turn back and I miss out on the best part." So here I find myself again one foot in front of the other hoping I am going about this in the right way. "New roads; new ruts." G.K. Chesterton. So will I make it to the end will I find what I am looking for? That I still cannot answer but I can't resist the opportunity, here's hoping I never can.
"A person with half volition goes backwards and forwards but makes no progress on even the smoothest of roads." Thomas Carlyle. Not my will be done but Your's.

I am scared to be known for who I really am

I am in a constant masquerade and in my poor judgement up until this point I think I have thought it was fun. It seems each day is just a new one for me and I choose my mask carefully which one will be most socially acceptable what will make me more loveable and appealing. I always seem to show up though and don't have the right theme or I am one step behind the fashion trend, figuritively thinking. I don't know why I choose to confess this where anyone can read this but nobody probably will. Partially cause the internet is where I spend most of my time these days mostly by default rather then choice. The internet is also the place where I also live; a world that I create from textiles of fantasy rather then reality. I can play the game here and nobody would know the difference. I long to be known for who I am but I am too chicken because I am afraid nobody would love the naked me. But there is LOVE not the thing the person who I am counting on showing up to save me.
"Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within." James Arthur Baldwin.
Please save me from myself.

Will the monster always win?

I am currently caught in a tangled web of mess in my mind about motives, the purpose of life, and my role in it all. I wonder how often I will do what I dont want to do.
"Man is to himself the most wonderful object in nature; for he cannot conceive what the body is, still less what the mind is, and least of all how a body should be united to a mind. This is the consummation of his difficulties, and yet this is his very being." Pascal

What am I waiting for?

I often feel like I am waiting for my life to begin. I am not exactly sure what I am waiting for but I feel like I am getting robbed of the present. I have taken many hours and maybe even days to consider this but how is it that one begins to live in the present?
"Those great efforts of intellect, upon which the mind sometimes touches, are such that it cannot maintain itself there. It only leaps to them, not as upon a throne, forever, but merely for an instant." Pascal
Maybe I will not know the fullness of each passing moment this side of heaven, but I will continue to search for the measuring stick of truth and the perspective of eternity. In the meantime I will watch the time tick by without my consent and I will continue to adapt and grow. But how I wish I had the courage to rush down the stairs.

The Greatest Addiction is Fantasy

"We do not content ourselves with the life we have in ourselves and in our being; we desire to live an imaginary life in the mind of others, and for this purpose we endeavor to shine. We labor unceasingly to adorn and preserve this imaginary existence and neglect the real."
"Religiousness can sometimes be like an inoculation. They give you something like the real thing so when the real thing comes along you are already immune to it."
I WANT THE REAL THING! Truth is always truth and if you want it with all your heart it will find you. Here is to bumping into truth.

blind smile

"When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in the eternity before and after, the little space which I fill and even can see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I am ignorant and which know me not, I am frightened and am astonished at being here rather than there. For there is no reason why here rather than there, why now rather than then.
Nothing is so insufferable to man as to be completely at rest, without passions, without business, without diversion, without study. He then feels his nothingness, his forlornness, his insufficiency, his dependence, his weakness, his emptiness. There will immediately rise from the depth of his heart weariness, gloom, sadness, fretfulness, vexation, despair." Pascal

"and I still havent found what I'm looking for" U2

...And know the place for the first time

"We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started... and know the place for the first time." T.S. Eliot I found my heart lying on the pavement in the shape of a leaf this morning. The green of life juxtaposed with the sharp gray of gravel. Laub with no where to go, no home to rest, blown by the wind of wanting. Life so vibrant and fragile, destined to die preserved with beauty in my mind. Would that my heart would blow where I belong.