Becoming Someone's Testimony

I used to hear songs and think to myself that maybe some divine memorandum was sent out to the great bards and musicians of our time and that they had written these anthems for me. Each word permeated through me, each note skied through my soul slopes stinging and soothing in due turn. But whatever protagonist the song was praising, whether he was a fallen hero or at the top of his game, that hero was always me. I just knew it.

I was the hero of every song I heard.

It is only recently that I have heard songs and known I was the villain. For the first time the hero was singing and telling of my misdeeds. Telling of my menace.

And that is a devil of a realization to come to.

So just what is it I've become? God is "the master of my fate [and] the captain of my soul." So what? What am I?

I believe I am a testimony.

It happens to everyone. It's never good. But, when we tell our testimony, many times there is someone else involved in the story. Many times there is a perpotrator. A villain. We never know their names. We just are told of their crimes. They just lay beaten and bruised in the alleyways of the story.

But the thing is, they are people and they are souls and they too have a story.

To rejoice in someone's testimony is correct. It is their triumph.

But anothers defeat. So we have a paradox

But maybe, maybe becoming someone's testimony is a testimony in itself

And even though we are singing along to our own judgment and humming our own dirge...

Maybe there is hope for us yet.

We are distorted harbingers of the grace of God. We did it the wrong way, but He isn't finished with us, and He will get to glory. It's not about what we want to be, it's about an inescapable past. And it's about how maybe, just maybe we can find an ending to the story to make the book worth finishing. The first stack of paper in my left hand is useless. Tear them out and hand them out as religious tracts. Learn from me. Learn from me.

We always think about our testimony.

But a greater triumph may come from the transformation from murderer to martyr.

At least that's what I'm hoping.

Stupid songs.

Friendship Is a Dying Art

And where it once hung proudly in museums of considerable pomp, it now is at best graffitied on a few rebel souls here and there.

But it's still beautiful.

Friendship can hold on just as fast as it can let go. I don't mean to let go in abandonment, but to let go into better hands. Because it makes sense that in the walk of life that closer people will come and go, but I'll always be there for the drop off.

So take advantage of me. I'm at your disposal. Not because I'm weak, but because I love you and I love you more than I love me. I've found that I can be whatever my friends need me to be. I'm not a personality on a television who picks his popularity. I'm a puppet on willing strings. I'm going to do right. Wrong me. I'll do right.

Because I forgive you, not because I have a good heart, but because my bad heart has been forgiven and I can't be mad at anyone really.

And because loyalty sounds like bells ringing and foreign lights falling out of the blue. It's a beautiful sound and a grinning taste on my tongue.

And a person is a tougher case than a population. Someone taught me that. People take time and investment and tears. Populations don't have souls. If we save the majority we can sleep at night. But there is such thing as a minority and their souls were important too.

I can't compromise my morals, but I can compromise myself. Because who I want to be by way of whim or gimmick isn't half as important as you. So I'll betray myself and we'll walk on, branded though I am.

And I will do the things I hate. Because they aren't right or wrong, I just hate them, but I'll do them for you.

Because I can still paint. Don't mind my abstractions or impressions. Don't mind my dripping colours and torn canvasses.

Because it's a dying art I have a hard time.

But my medium is this: I will be loyal to you. I will work at our friendship. I will be relentless in times of need. I will put you before me.

And I will fail.

But in the end

It will be a masterpiece.

Charity Prioritized

What makes charity happen? I reckon it is the goodness in people's hearts. Probably people see a need that they can meet and they jump to it. They see a devastating truth and say "it oughtn't to be" so they pull out the pocketbook or roll up their sleeves and get to work.

For some.

For many charity is that tiny pest on the budget list, spawned from guilt or social position.

For others, like say companies, it is an ad campaign. We're gonna give money to these folks!

The ethics of our giving can only be solved in our own hearts, but something else bugs me.

It's this business of what we are giving to. I mean there are some ridiculous charities out there. Others aren't foolish, they are noble even, but they don't make sense in light of other problems.

Take Coca-Cola for instance, this year they had a big campaign to save the homes of Polar Bears with the pristine, white arctic mammals depicted on the front giving us all a warm holiday feel. Imagine Coca-Cola putting a homeless human on their cans. "Save this man's home." or a starving child. That's a little morbid for me to see everytime I tip up the can of carbonated soda. It wouldn't sit well with the syrupy sweetness.

I know I'll seem ignorant when I take off after the enormous Going Green fad (yes fad, that's not charity, that's pop culture). I mean if we don't take care of the planet then people will surcease to exist. Okay, so take care of the planet. Don't do and you won't have to undo. But before we go spend money on the trees let's take care of the people. People that are starving or living endangered lifestyles or dying from preventable diseases.

It's not right.