The Thin Red Line

 

Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, 'ow's yer soul?"
But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll,

                              --Rudyard Kipling                    

 

I have often wondered to myself:

What is this war between people? What is it that makes them unable to ignore wrongdoing? How can they harbour ill feelings? I can't.

 

It's a thin red line we stand behind.

 

Try as I may, I have been unable to condemn a behaviour which seems to stem from self-preservation in the face of a wound given by another. One has to heal. Though I'm sure I cannot yet fathom a quarantine which eliminates the perpetrator from the life of the wounded.

 

I think I have begun to be bothered by a new truth.

 

First, we know we are knicked with depravity and will inevitably partake in immoral action. Second, we know that if we surround ourselves with people then they will suffer from our self-motivated deeds. We will hurt their trust, their hearts, and we will negatively alter their lives. The unavoidability of this does not make it easier to swallow for our victims. The facts will e'er remain that we did not have to do it.

 

I can take heart in one thing. As much as I obsess over winning the approval of people, I now realize this is an empty practise. People do not have the capability, for the most part, of moving past some irrevocable pain. God does. This does not make the person who does not wrong or lesser, nor does it mean they have not forgiven. It is yet another deficiency in the human heart and head.

 

While it reamins that some will truly love you no matter what hurt you inflict on them or people they love, others simply find themselves unable to do so.

 

I will lose my favour with people. Probably sooner than later. If I believe that, then it becomes important that I live in such a way that pleases God and not man. Because man is incapable of a certain level and a certain consistency of forgiveness. So when wrong is done, it is our responsibility to approach the victims, apologize, beg forgiveness, and subsequently carry on knowing that God knows our heart in all its filth and he knows the plans he has for us. He is the audience for whom we should strive to please.

 

Christmas Eve

I have been given the opportunity to become very, very sad.

 

Every person born is afforded the same option. Many take it. It comes in arcane suits asking us to please take a sip. The sip straddles a gulp which is in turn embracing a galloping swallow. I became faint at merely the smell. It danced into my chest like a swaying harem of buxom women. They dropped charms around my sternum and it spread like gleeful galaxies and almost astro-cries. There was a folding inside my face and I felt it until I was completely clay. What would I gain from a taste of this. Could I just touch my lips to the rim of the glass? Could I make myself put it down after that? I don't know.

 

There are things riding around us. There are buses we can catch and others that we maybe can't. I waved my thumb at a passerby, here, in my room on Christmas Eve, and they sped by. Certainty never stops for me. But transgression screeches its breaks with an open door and a bust of fresh air from the door as it hisses open. A man stands there winding me on with his every offer. I am a squinty, scared boy. Opportunity appears in heavy hazes. It pixelates me until I feel like I'm part of the mirage. I feel welcome in the disconcordant speed. I wish you would all leave me here. Heroics never touch anything warm.

 

There was this record that played this axiom: "They're Only Chasing Safety." I wonder what else we are only chasing. Maybe I am only chasing righteousness. I'm maybe only tripping over my own feet. Or maybe everyone's feet. Maybe humanity is trying to trip me all at once and as a result I can walk over all of their feet with perfect poise. The cement is slowly being sucked out of my solid soul. What strength can do that? I can't be sure, but in the empty pockets it leaves behind I feel like I never have.

 

I am the bad one in a whole gym of good ones. I am the unpracticed no one. I leave in my truck and I head to the woods. (I do this in my room on Christmas Eve). When I arrive I pull a gun from a sheath across my back. It is greased and black. The barrell is innocent but in the hands of me. I am not innocent. I am guilty as the bullet that pierces me (who else would I hunt but me). I am a villain wanting to try harder but shuffling trylessly home. I am consoled. I don't deserve to be consoled.

 

I have the opportunity to shine.

But that opportunity doesn't come to visit very often.

 

I'm in my room and it's early Christmas morning.

I am a cripple with a heart wrestling to rise. I am a cotton man, pulled apart.

 

I have the opportunity to be very, very sad.

 

Instead I think I'll be thankful that over miles of myself and my own pathetic attempts at doing life decently, Jesus had the opportunity to do the unthinkable and he did.

 

I'll take this opportunity to say Merry Christmas

 

and, next year things will be different. Things will be better.

The Quixote Project

Don Quixote is often referred to as the greatest story of all time. In summary, it relates the tale of a man who believes his life to be a great romance which he has read about in his books. He traverses the surrounding land picking fights of honor, winning over ladies, acquiring honor. He embodies errantry and chivalry. The drawback to his misadventures is their truth. They are completely fabricated.

 

Besides the expository nature of this blog, I occasionally dabble in fiction. I enjoy fiction because it affords the opportunity to create. It is a playing field for one's own wishes or ideas or regrets. It lends passage to stray realities and their respective plots and characters. I am (in theory) the master of the fate of each and every entity on which I choose to bestow the allowance of birth and a life thereafter.

These worlds, of course, lie entirely in my mind. My adventures may be had from the comfort of an easy chair. No one could know what battles were fought behind my eyes or what romances brewed in the back of my brain. I own, in this awkward stage of existence wherein I totter on the edge of adulthood, a certain air of respectability. That is to say it is only decent that I decide to keep these fancies right where they belong: in my mind.

(And I am certainly lost in my mind often enough).

I sometimes remember my life as a child. I regret my regression into a world entirely of my own making. Still, it is incredible to witness in retrospect a person who could become so totally lost in a made-up world. I could even believe that these false worlds were true. The state of my mental wanderings were ineluctably true. What we believe is our truth.

It causes me to wonder, if in my young life, without the still limited experience and knowledge I have now acquired, I could invent worlds of considerable detail, then what, pray tell is my mind currently capable of?

There is no dignity in the project of which I'm sure you have guessed that I intend to endeavor. It is a journey into unfettered imagination. I will unbridle my pride and let my mind loose and allow my actions to follow suit.

What then would the childish play of a non-child do for my own literary hopes?

I'll let you know.

I shall play pretend.

God Shopping

I was reading one of my favourite authors the other day, Don Miller. He's sort of like this pop theologist that says real casual things about life and existence. I was reading from his book "Searching For God Knows What" and he wrote this:

If I weren't a Christian and I kept seeing Christian leaders on television more concerned with money, fame, and power than with grace, love, and social justice. I wouldn't want to believe in God at all. I really wouldn't. The whole thing would make me want to walk away from religion altogether... [I would think],their God must be an idiot to see the world in such a one-sided way. The god who cares so much about getting rich must not have treasures stored up in heaven, and the god so concerned about getting even must not have very much patience, and the god who cares so much about the West must really hate the rest of the world, and that doesn't sound like a very good god to me. The televangelist can have him for all I care.

As much as I love my boy Don, I had to pull a pen and write in the top margin: It Doesn't Matter. It really doesn't. It's like we are all missing the concept of God. Is He not an all-powerful personality? If you believe there is a God, then it doesn't really matter what you think about Him. He's God. It isn't as if you could argue with him, and say "hey I don't like the way you operate." I mean I feel as if a lot of people are trying to tell God that his idea of goodness is a little off or that in order to be just he needs to change his methodology. It's like arguing with Dickens about the thesis of A Tale of Two Cities. "I should know, I wrote it," he would say.

If you ask me, we're lucky God is good. If he were not, it wouldn't matter a lick. You can't ignore God. You just can't. He is everything.

I was talking to my friend Barefoot Brian at Lee one day at lunch as we spooned our sherbert out of coffee cups. I like talking to Brian because he is really smart and isn't judgmental. We were talking about our problems with the Christian faith. He began to tell me why he decided he was an agnostic buddhist. He said he believed in God, but the way we claim kindred to that God is different for everyone. I told him that this way to paradise and higher knowledge is awfully convenient. I told him that for all we know it could be convenient, but it also could be, in our books, unjust, unfair, difficult, foolish, or evil. I told him I didn't think it was, but if God was God then it didn't really matter if I thought he was good or just. If goodness or justice existed, it was because a supreme being wired humans to attract it or repel it.

Once my friend Lila and I walked to the park as she smoked her cigar and we talked about a similar subject. We thought God might have favourites. I've never liked this notion, but it's not about what I like. It's about the truth.

If you believe in God, then you can't believe that he is something you can shop for. There is no off-brand God. There is only one. There is no, better buy, none more durable or longer lasting. There is no "as seen on T.V." God.

There's only God and He is who He says He is, and who He says He is, is good.

Ephesus

To the angel of the church of Ephesus write, To the angel of the church of Ephesus write, I know your works...your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil. And you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars; and you have persevered and have patience, and have labored for My name's sake and have not become weary. Nevertheless I have this against you:
 That you have left your first love.
I have a friend at college and he really loves people, and by George, they love him right back. He is my social rival. I say this because I look at life like it's some elaborate movie with characters and that's where he fell into place. So I conjure this imaginary competition between us where we attempt to sequester the love of our friends one from the other. And he always wins. But the truth is he couldn't care less, and I think it's heaps of fun.

Somehow summer became, and with it the colors of my home were sucked from township Portrait. But other colours spewed, fell, and leaked into the little province and one of those colors was the summer residence of my social rival. I was in his room and I told him my story. I told him my sickness.

He knew. He knows.

"Do you remember what John the apostle told the church of Ephesus?"

Of course not, I haven't cracked a Bible in months.

But I found out. I read their mail.

Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent.
I want to be good. I try to do good. I try to love people. I try to watch over them. I try to answer their prayers. I try to forgive them. I try to advise them. But I don't have a place to do any of this. I don't have a place for my head under their foot, much less a hand in their heart.

So what? So I did something good one time. People write me poems. Several people. I read a poem recently that was accurate for a change and so did my social rival. We know that underneath a composure that's sickeningly calm there is a broken, lost, confused, sorry (for everything), apathetic, and lonely man.

Call me Ephesus.

Ephesus was the mother church to the others.

I always put the kids to bed before I take up the bottle, and I always sober up before they wake.

We are all connected by the same Roman road. A load of nerved up, pagans puppeting, staggering, and knocking heads in the dark in search for a temple with a little light. I used to feel as if I should pray for people. Now I only feel like they should pray for me. Pray that I will find my first love. That I can believe. That I can love. 

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God.

Today Ephesus is in ruins, and its church is gone.

Goodbyes and One Times

(Do you think?)the
i do,world
is probably made
of roses & hello:

(of solongs and,ashes)

                                                              --e e cummings

It is amazing how it all comes flooding back.

Once I was sitting on my bed in my dorm room in college and some big athletic guy had some Asian with a panda hat on in a headlock and the song "We Are Young" by the indie pop band Fun was playing loudly in the room. I had Coca-Cola in my mouth and a Bible in my lap. Someone else was asleep in my floor and some guy I didn't know came in to brush his teeth. Someone outside was screaming Merry Christmas and my phone was ringing.

I thought to myself, In all my ponderings and imaginations, I never in a million years would have imagined this scene in my college experience.

Nothing actually happened the way it was supposed to. In all my composing, I could never have dreamt up such a song. It at once saddens me and thrills me.

So this is life.

And it grew up so fast.

There was never a dull moment. Everyday was a holiday and it was full of adventure, tragedy, and dragons to slay.

What you want to do is think back to each character and remember how you met them and how they changed you.

Life is full of goodbyes and one times. Goodbyes are sad, so are one times. They are memories. But there are no goodbyes without hellos and there are no one times without adventures. I think that's mostly why I'm obsessed with nostalgia and I revel in goodbyes.

I'm faced with the horror of fleeting youth for the first time.

Because tonight we are young, but tomorrow we are not. Anthems aren't something you cue, they are something that happens. They are the moments you sit in and feel and touch but can't keep. This is our story and we have a responsibility to it. It is what we make it.

The truth is, adventures happen to adventurous people. If you keep running away because you are bored or because you can't find experience where you are, then chances are you will never find it. Where you are is the best place. Where you are there are stories untold. It is up to you to tap into them. There are no such thing as dull moments unless we make it so. Everyday has the potential to be tucked away in the annals of the human endeavor. We are the children of God. The brave princes and princesses that are His supreme joy. We have a grail to find, but we aren't to find it with our head down.

Look up.

There's a tree there, climb it.

There's a cave there, explore it.

There's love there, pursue it.

There's a stone there, turn it.

There's life here

Take it.

Goodbyes and One Times are my very breath.

Story

I sit on benches sometimes and just watch. People walk and run and I wonder what they look like from way up high. Crawling all over the planet.

Sometimes all you can do is live in a moment. It sounds silly, but sometimes I sort of pray in the back of my mind that God would let me watch life all over again after it was finished, and that there was always some hidden camera with innate cinematography following me around, and at the end of all things I could watch the best movie ever.

Because everything is happening so fast. I can't keep up with it. Sometimes all you can do is live in a moment, and try to hold a pillow over philosophy's head so you can maintain some measure of practicality in your life. Sometimes all you can do with the beauty of a moment is just live in it. You can't write of it or paint it or photograph it. You're just helplessly falling through it with windy seconds flying up past you ticking your arms like gnats.

I got that feeling when I sat on a roof once. I looked out over the dark Aladdin-blue sky full of childhood glitter and heard a train stack by. And I let the puppy wind snap at my skin and lifted a bottle of Cola up with good cheer. All I could do was live.

But the worst of it is when I am with a soul. They are impossible to keep. Every second inside their mind is avalanching and stampeding and noise. Their hearts are like a thousand motley balloons looking like clown suits flying upwards and I can't catch one of them.

I so wish I could.

I look at them and every movement in their face or sound from their tongue is like old magic. I've known the best kind of people and when I watch them smoke cigars or write poetry or scream war cries I get chills. Because they are real and I get to be near them. I know the best people. That is my biggest blessing and what I'm most proud of. I am surrounded with greatness.

The problem is with time, or the passage thereof. We keep moving when I just want to stop. And nostalgia is like running backwards on a cursed conveyor belt.

I think of the places I've been and the places I've seen and that's what I want to keep doing. Keep meeting and loving and learning. And I want them all to know that they can be free, because I've been freed for good. And I want them to know that in His presence is fullness of joy and at his right hand are pleasure forevermore. And I need them to see that because the place where we are going to find unedited love is also a place where we will always be together and we will all love each other the same and time will be a laughable thing.

So I have to tell them. I have to listen to their stories for the rest of my life, and I have to tell them that we are all pilgrims and we all have to go seek the Kingdom and do anything we have to do to find it.

I was telling someone the other day that I don't have a story.

But that isn't true. I do have a story.

My story is everyone else's story.

I have to tell their stories. Even if it kills me.

Because in reading theirs, I can write mine.

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.

Jesus and I

I know that Jesus is real. I've never been able to shake that. That's always been something of a secular problem for me, and my spirit just loves that upper hand.

So this I know. I am a cynic and I can argue on both sides of the existence of God and Jesus as Lord. I could be an atheist's best friend in an argument.

But none of that matters. I know. I've tried to prove it untrue, but my mental eloquence makes no difference to the truth.

So I know that. So what?

Sometimes I lie awake at night and in my heart Jesus and I are in a deep wood. Out there in "all that dark and all that cold." And He is teaching me things and we just have some conversation and I ask Him questions and He recommends books and songs. And then I lie down to sleep and I remember that I've been a jerk to Him, but He doesn't. He just throws another heavy blanket over my shoulders and stirs the fire. That's just how it comes to mind.

And when I wake up by a smoking pile of sticks, He's gone. I don't mean gone as in I won't see Him again, I just mean He isn't right there. But I know that whenever I've hit the wire and there's nothing I can do He's there. And when life kicks the crap out of me He's there. He's a good man. People have a problem with that because it makes Him sound tame but He's not that. He's a warrior and a fighter and He's tougher than I. But He's still a good man.

The human race is pretty feminine. That's why we're the bride.

I don't know. God always shows up and I forget that sometimes. I tell people God never talks to me. I tell people I've never seen God. That's a fact. But when has He let me down? I don't know why He keeps stepping between me and my enemies, who I invite in my own home.

I think He must love the heck out of me.

Sometimes I sin. But sometimes I don't, and it's those times that I imagine God is beside me screaming and yelling "Don't quit! Don't quit! Don't quit! You can let that go! I believe you can do it! Look at me, look! We can take this! Say it to me! Say you won't let go!" And His eyelids are like white mud and they are circled by bruise colored fatigue because he's been staying up with me night after night after night begging me not to relent, reminding me how much He loves me and How much He is moved by me.

Sometimes I am sad. Often I am, but I'm a thespian with a cause. Still, sometimes it gets to be too much and in my mind I'm making a speech before a crowd and the burden is too much and I start to collapse but he catches me under my arms and whispers in my ears the words to my speech and I spit them out with passion and tears.

I walk outside sometimes and I can understand the proverb "a fool says in his heart 'there is no God,'" because I see glory and glory and glory everywhere. You would have to be stupid to think it all just happened right?

There are inexplicable feelings. Let's not blame them on chemicals.

I know that God loves me with the truest love. I know that the facts that "God loves you" and "Jesus Saves" are cliche. But I know that all cliches are great truths and that there is a reason they have been repeated and repeated and repeated. I know that God love me. I know that I can know Jesus. I know that "the same things win that always won." I know that God's love won't ever become antiquated or outdated.

I know that for whatever reason God is captivated by me. I know that He is stricken with emotion at each action I take. I know He is smitten with my journey towards Him. I know He is excited for my pilgrimage. I know He is devastated by my falls and hurt by my abandonment. My waste. I know every second is an ache when I am prodigal. I know He is angered by my sin. I know He is jealous for my attentions.

There are house fires everywhere you turn. I know people are burning to the ground. It's during these times that I imagine that I know a guy that can put it out. He's bigger and faster and stronger than I and He's the only man for the job. And I know He's on the other side of a forest and across plains in His home and all I have to do is run there and get Him, but sometimes I am too lazy to do that. But if I would just go and get Him, I know He'd take care of it.

Sometimes I lay in a a creek half-faced in cold water and he jerks me up and thuds His big hands across my face a time or two and He says to me, "Stop being stupid, I saved you're life." And that's why I get up and do his bidding. Carry out His mission. A knight loyal to my King. A son loyal to His Father.

Sometimes I hear a song and I tell Him it reminds me of Him.

He is the cause, citizens, that we fight for. He is something worth being passionate about. How sad that I can find time to be cynical about that.

I don't want to hide this fact, but neither do I want to present it in the wrong light.

Jesus and I are in something of a relationship. Because, we do things together. Generally it's me being a bad friend, son, subject, or whatever else you want to say. But when God is done raising His child I will be a warrior. Polished, but oh so rough around the edges. "I'm flawed, but I'm cleaning up so well, I am seeing in me now the things you swear you saw yourself." You've known what I was made of all along. You've always known what you were doing and you've always loved me. He's proud of me.

I'm just going to be frank with you, I love Jesus Christ.

May my life testify to that.

Faces to Statistics

At my campus at Lee University in Cleveland Tennessee, they showed a documentary about sex trafficking and prostitution. The documentary was titled Nefarious: Merchant of Souls and will be available in the way of DVD before long.

The film was really about slavery. A people in bondage. A portion of the synopsis of the film read as follows:

Regardless of nationality, victims are systematically stripped of their identity, battered into gruesome submission and made to perform humiliating sexual acts with up to 40 strangers every night. Held against their will, most are forced to take illegal drugs and are kept under constant surveillance. On average, victims are thrown into such ghastly oppression at age 13. Some are abducted outright, while others are lured out of poverty, romantically seduced, or sold by their families.

Here are some statistics on international slavery:

• A child is trafficked every 30 seconds.
• The average age of entry into commercial sex slavery in the United States is 13 years old.
• Human trafficking occurs in 161 out of 192 countries.
• Human trafficking is a 32 billion dollar per year industry.
• In some countries it is estimated that 70% of men purchase sex
• Over 27 million people are enslaved around the world.

Now try putting faces to these statistics. That's what the film does. Dirty men and helpless women. The average age for being thrust into the sex industry is 13 years. Parents literally sell their daughters into it. When they have a daughter it is said that they "hit the jackpot." They don't only sell their children to buy necessities (this still a terrible injustice) they sell them for luxuries, like television sets. Able fathers do nothing as their helpless daughters send checks home.

Even where prostitution is legal, organized crime is rampant. The reality is everyone in the sex industry is a slave.

As I watched the horrors unfold on the screen. I began thinking about giving money. Decidedly I would. I began to think about all the organizations as I listened to the women involved give testimony to the horrors of the life and even the trauma still faced afterwards. Some women even go back into the industry after being rescued from it.

A man who helps fight against these injustices spoke and he talked of how many people think if you educate the young women it will solve the problem. He said that this is disproved by the prostitution and traficking that goes on in America. He said that many of the young girls would have counseling but nothing would help.

It left me wondering what would.

The end moved me far beyond what I imagined it would. Of course, the answer was clear.

Jesus Christ is the only hope.

Each of the women interviewed (and even a former traifficker) spoke of what Jesus had done form them. Few of them did not weep when they spoke His name. Of course Christ is the only hope. It's like we are taking part of emancipation inflation. We have the tangible means of freedom but we don't have the assets to back it. If America prints money money money, then good, they have money, but if they don't have the assets to back it, then it's worthless. In the same way, we can counsel, educate, give money, rescue and do whatever we want to stop trafficking, but if we don't have Christ to back it then it is worthless.

Action is required. You can always turn a blind eye. That's okay. But abolitionist William Wilberforce spoke of a different sort of person. An incurable fanatic:

“If to be feelingly alive to the sufferings of my fellow-creatures is to be a fanatic, I am one of the most incurable fanatics ever permitted to be at large.”

—William Wilberforce

Wilberforce practised three methods of taking action. The first: prayer.

This is where the assets back the action. We need Christ to change lives. We can't do it. The team showing the film recommended that every time we, in our vehicles drive past a red light that we remember to pray for those in trafficking or red light districts. It's a brilliant reminder. Prayer is powerful.

The second is raising awareness. Blogs, twitter, facebook, youtube. We have everything we need to make a cause known. Just do it.

The third is to give. Money. Your money. Give it for something better than your coffee a day at starbucks. You can literally commit to giving 3 dollars per week. You can spare it I promise. Yes. Money.

Though it seems a hopeless cause with God there is hope. Take action. Be an incurable fanatic.

Here is the site to get you started.

http://nefariousdocumentary.com/

Music Therapy

Music, among other things, is a bridge between the past, present, and future. That is, nostalgia, contentment, and hope. It inspires, it lends spices and salt to the bland emotions. It escalates wildly from apathy to action. It speaks to the heart of matters. It does, of course, more than I can ever hope to explain in hundreds of books, much less a brief essay.

What I want to walk across in so many words, is the bridge that it makes. The one I just talked about between the parodoxical stations of time. Because it does that, I think, it is a "balm to the soul."

It's a relationship. The music can be our voice in anger, grief, envy, joy, or any number of feelings that we want to let loose into a conduit.

But music heals too.

Sometimes when I'm sad, I want to feed that sadness. It's like when your lips are chapped, you sort of pull them apart and make your way towards the apex of the sting, once there you can smile at ease, because you've felt as much pain as you can possibly feel towards the matter. When I am filled with sorrow, I let the music feel me up and pull apart the lips of my lament, cracking them and releasing the eager blood. Searing the thin skin.

Sometimes it doesn't really matter the message of a song. Haven't you ever been grieved by a song that has a happy tune and lively lyrics? It is guilty by association at times. The best way to ruin a song is to listen to it in a dark time, because forever after when it plays it will be a mournful piece. I could make a playlist from those dirges. And listen to it until the melancholy memory pats me on the back and repeats the locational and situationally nonsensical, "there, there."

But sometimes the music therapy playlist just says "Hey, I'm a million miles away under an equally dark sky penning out this song on old paper and running my cold, callous fingers down the guitar strings. Smelling the ink and the metallic blood in each resonance of the chords. And feeling the same aches and tasting the same bitterness and sitting outside lost 'in all that dark and all that cold.' So let's go find a fire together. Heck, let's go build one." And the fiddler follows as you trek and trip through the trauma.

Toy Story Theory

I guess my problem with science has just been that I am an alleged hopeless romantic. We just don't get along. Our relationship isn't hostile. We are merely two different sorts of people. I like looking at the world in one way and they like looking at it in another. There are ways of reconciling the two, but I as long as I like scientists I don't have a real need to like science. Some of it is fascinating, but I just don't like how much it explains. Water isn't as beautiful if you think of it as two hydrogens and one oxygen. I don't want to know what things are made of. I like to think that things have essence and aren't entirely material. I like to think that humans have souls. If you tell me that a rock is sedimentary I usually want to bust your chops. I am annoyed sometimes that we can see the bottom of the ocean and the inner works of the body and that we can logically go into space. All the wonder has been explained away hasn't it?

It's not all bad. I could talk on the other side if I were a scientist, but since I am on the philosophizing, romantic end (ironic I would call this post a theory) I am going to contest the scientific explanations of all time.

I suppose it is only fair I explain the title. If you have seen Toy Story, you know that the toys are very much animate and all living out these intense dramas in their own miniature world. That is until the humans come around. Then they drop whatever they are doing and become ordinary pieces of plastic only brought to life by the imaginations of children.

Now, let's take an example from science. The human eye will do just fine. Science tells us that eyes are organs that detect light and convert it to electro-chemical impulses in neurons. It is a pupil, a cornea, an iris, and a lens and an optic nerver among other tiny structures. If you take the eye out of the skull you will find a blood shot orb with a little flagellate tail that once sent signals to the brain. If you look what was behind that it is just a big compression of cerebral mush. There isn't anything inside that eye. You can disect it and you won't find other worlds. It's no portal. No Shakespeare, or Da Vinci or whoever said that it was the window the soul. No it's not because you see when we tear open a head we can look and see that there is nothing back their but organs and blood. So there you have it. That would seem to explain it.

But you can't ever be sure.

Because maybe, maybe, there are some things we humans aren't meant to see. Maybe it is only when we leave the room that the toys come to life. Maybe the moon's face turns to craters when we put a telescope to its lunar lips. Maybe the sea lays out a carpet of sand to hide the fact that it is bottomless as the divers get nosy. Maybe our eyes turn to limp lumps of light-lapping lenses when we try to pull back the curtains on the windows to the soul. I think eyes go much much deeper than that. I know when I look in someone's eyes that what we see behind the drapes cannot be what is actually going on inside there. Fire is not a chemical reaction, it is more of a miracle. It is an element. Trees are wise, photosynthesis is not how they dine. They are classier than that. The universe is a work of art. You can't explain these things. It's alive. I bet you really could journey to the center of the earth.

I think that the world has a heart of its own and the real stories are going on behind our back. Those that don't believe don't get an inside scoop. Much closer to the actual action is not the textbooks and dissertations or anything that you can see under a microscope. Much closer are the fairy tales and the madness of poetry. Much closer are the philosophers and the supernaturally inclined. Something is going on in another context, but we don't know it. We are like the children who can only make up the stories with our imagination. We play with the toys but never see them at play without us. They are in hiding. They don't want to be discovered.

Then where would the mystery be?

Bravery

The road takes you a lot of places. There isn't much of a science to it. You just get on it and get to moving. The destination, more often than not, has nothing to do with where it takes you and what it shows you and teaches you. Roads are escape artists and navigators and smugglers and homes and journeys. That's why bards still borrow from its books and young people will attend its lectures.

Deification is what I call the above paragraph. A derivative of personification, it involves giving qualities of God to other things. It is probably a nifty resource for atheists everywhere. But it is also appropriate for allegory. What I mean to say is that it wasn't the road that took me somewhere with certain people, it was God.

As fate would have it, I was riding down the freeway one day to attend an outdoor Christian rock concert with three of my brothers (not by blood) Daniel, Samuel, and Wesley. When we arrived at the extra small town we saw a classic cameraman and pretty young newscaster duo. We all got sorta happy as we slowed down and lowered the windows thinking it had something to do with the concert.

"Put us on the news?"

"You don't want to be in this story."

Curiosity thus piqued we drove on ahead postulating amongst ourselves about what happened. Postulating so much that, in the unfamiliarity of the town, I passed the filling station that my friends wanted to stop at, seeing it as a justifiable place to use a restroom as opposed to the portable lavatories available concert-wise. They yelled at me to turn around so I pulled into a dirt driveway (apparently the only kind of driveway in style around these parts ) in order to back out and continue on in the opposite direction.

Upon pulling in, that sound we so often shrug off as background noise peeled the soundpaper of our scene back to where it could command our full attention. By gosh I tasted, felt, smelled, and saw that siren before I realized I was only hearing it. There were at least three emergency vehicles wasting no time getting where ever they were going.

Completing our vehicular 180 we found the engines to already be out of sight if not sound. We carried on our way only find a freeway fricasseed with frenzy. The epicity seemed operatic. Determined not to get caught in the turbulent metal black reflectionary snake of cars I pulled off at the median.

Action.

We surveyed what we now obvioused to be a wreck. Significant was a little purse of people all squatting in the grass. We agreed that they were huddled around a victim. What degree of victim that person was we did not yet know. Daniel announced that he was going to pray for them and unfastened his safety belt.

I cannot explain to you what happened in my spirit except that I didn't want him too. Maybe because I knew he was doing what was right and I knew that I didn't want to step up and do what was right.

Heroes do what's right.

"I don't think we are supposed to do that. I don't think they'll let you"

"They'll just turn me back then."

"Do something!" went the conscience's coax And still I sat. I watched him walk over slowly. I wondered if he had hesitation and a tinge of fear in his heart. If he did I couldn't have admired him more or been angrier (as a scapegoat for my own cowardice).

I saw other officials approaching so I pulled to the other side and parked flipping the hazards on. I watched Daniel from afar.

My pocket buzzed. I pulled out my phone and who but Daniel was on the caller I.D. I picked answered.

"Yeah"

"Give Samuel the phone"

I did just that. Samuel threw the phone down and started running towards the scene. I deduced that they needed a Spanish speaker. I finally emerged from the vehicle taking hurried steps frustrated for my inactivity up until now.

I guess it was about a tenth of a mile away and when I got there Samuel was bent down holding a large woman's hand. Her eyes were shut tight and perspiration pickled her dark skin. Her foot was immediately noticable with blood and she complained about it most (in Spanish). She and her husband had been ejected from the car. Her husband had a white sheet over his face. Dead. I didn't find out that was her husband until later.

Sam was talking to her and I tried to pick up on what he was saying. I know he asked her how old her kids were. She said they were both twenty. Two men. Twins I suppose. I prayed and at length paramedics arrived with a stretcher. They asked questions through Samuel and we finally rolled her on to a sort of towel and lifted her onto a stretcher. Samuel kissed her brow and walked over to the ambulance with her talking to her all the way.

The four of us carried on back to the SUV. We were all sobered by the grit of the scene. It is hard to see. Samuel was sobered most. Across the highway I noticed the news reporter and cameraman we saw earlier. Samuel approached them and said a few things and we all went back to the car. We were quiet.

I could see Samuel was still upset. I told him he did good. I told him you could tell a difference between people who do good just to get a pat on the back and people who do good because they love people. Then it was quiet again and I prayed aloud.

Later at the concert as three of us sat under a tree, Samuel finally spoke on the matter.

"I lied to that woman"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I told her that everything was going to be okay and that her husband was going to be okay when I knew he was over there dead. I feel really bad about that."

...

"What did you tell those news people?"

"That is something you won't ever know Mitch" he smiled a little as he said this.

I think people like Daniel and Samuel are heroes because they take action and they get out of their comfort zone and they love people. I love people but I don't act on that. I know the two are destined for greatness in their own ways. They both have their own ambitions.

But I still feel guilty. For a little while now I have been shooting my mouth off about being brave and how Christianity requires it. It demands it. I am a critic of the hypo variety. I always say that I want to do ministry and I want to be involved in it. Several times I have said that I wanted to be a pastor. But I should know that pastors don't just stand in a pulpit and make good theological speeches. People in ministry are supposed to be brave. They are supposed to show love to the world. If they aren't doing that, they aren't doing their job.

I am not fully aware of the future plans of my friends. If they plan to be doctors or architects or movie producers or bankers they are still more of ministers than I. If they plan to be ministers then they have the right idea.

I need to be a Christian. I need to be brave.

Medlin!

For a very long time I have heard tell of the virtues of team sports. I have heard how they instill comraderie, selflessness, loyalty, courage, and a variety of other virtues. And I have never argued with that. It is something I always knew and agreed with. But I have never experienced it.

Until I came to Lee.

Out of the many dorms at Lee I was slid into the last minute, last choice, infamously ramshackle Medlin Hall. I had no complaints. It is pretty clean and comfortable. But it is, come to find out, a lot more than that. On the Leevitical island across the street from the rest of landlocked Leeland there exists a bond and a brotherhood not yet experienced by me.

The Hall is not a sports team, but sports play a huge role in the social lives of we Leevites. I, for one, have never been good at athletic activity. I have always loved it. Truly. But we just aren't all born with the required machinery. I don't know what it is in some guys that make them so sharp at everything.

My short time in Medlin has seen an immediate pride. The hall is divided into four floors which each have a west and an east side. I am on (and proudly so) 1st floor East. But we all are chanters of Medlin. Whenever it is mentioned hands go up with thumbs touching and upside down making and M and a manly "Medlin!" is let out. Everybody knows Medlin when they see them.

Last night. That is, the 24th of August, the Medlinites all marched to the arena for a dodgeball tournament amongst themselves. Each floor had it's own wardrobe. I was elated to find that ours was a black out. We walked across the campus to the arena, leading us was a caped lodger. There was all sorts of oddities in the uniform department. Facepaint notwithstanding.

We got there and my team caught those 3 zillion m.p.h. balls like they were butterflies and all I could do was dodge like the unathlete I am. I finally said to God that I needed to be brave and jumped up to the front lines and caught one and there is no way I can dictate the exhileration that accompanied that. Even though the catches were practically worthless to the victory it was like being part of a team, an army. And when 1st floor East won (which of course we did) that rally in the middle was something you have to experience.

I have always known that team sports were something great, but I had never realized it. That makes all the difference.

Medlin!

A Fairty Tale World

"You are about to enter a Fairy Tale World..."

These are the exact words of the nurse as a handful of Lee University freshmen and transfers prepared to enter the alzheimer's wing of the Bradley Healthcare & Rehabilitation Center. Amidst admonitions regarding giving them food or opening doors ("because they will ask you to let them out") she told us that they have created another world and she told how it was a blessing that they let us in even for a moment.

She punched in the pass code on the door and in we went. Through the wardrobe, down the rabbit hole, second star on the right and straight on till morning.

We waved our way down the aisles of invalids and wheelchairs. One dark lady with white permed hair wheeled around in the hallway, not saying much. The nurse was sunny and greeted her warmly as Louise.

In a sort of recreational room we smiled and waved and were cheery. It was somehow natural there. No one seemed to be overwhelmingly awkward. The nurse introduced us to Macy, clearly the most energetic of the bunch...and the most far gone. She bounced up and down in her chair joyously and gave the nurse a sloppy kiss. All smiles. She sang for us and hummed it was not very clear what she was singing but it sounded like pure childlike happiness. The nurse also brought a little light up spinner widget which she took too right away. I saw an old old man with his son sitting next to him. They were arguing with a gentleness that seemed playful, though it really was a valid argument. The old man was trying to grab his son's ear and the son, as if he were coaxing a child, told him he couldn't do that. The same went on with his glasses and with the buttons on his shirt. The old man kept arguing, "No, you know that I...let me...you know why...it's my..." I only heard snatches. It's not very funny how life switches around on us.

I held down the button on the light up toy and Macy just kept looking on at it and singing. I had to guard the cart for a second while the nurse stepped out and I kept pushing it behind me as she became interested in it. Finally I found the suitable distraction of a baby doll. I gave it to her and she took it and hugged it and mothered it.

Then a man that who was halfway cognitive grabbed my attention. I walked up to him and asked him how he was:

"Good good, I love it when you young people come in to visit," he placed his hand on my shoulder. I asked him his name.

"My name's Jimmy Brown." he knew that well.

Jimmy Brown had a son and a granddaughter. He didn't like to hunt because he didn't like to hurt things. He never played sports much. His son is a mechanic. He has lived in Cleveland, Tennessee all his life. He would have liked to have done more schooling but when he was fifteen his father left him and his mother and he had to do farmwork so they could get by. That day he had been watching Little House on the Prairie and when asked if it came on everyday he said "pert near everyday." On the front of his walker is a girraffe neck and head structure painted and made of wood that he calls Christy after his granddaughter. He loves gospel music and he likes Elvis, he has an Elvis CD but not one of his Gospel ones so I am going to buy him one when I get the chance. He also likes "hillbilly" music sometimes. He says he loves to dance and they have dances every week on his floor. He used to work for a group of people who cleaned houses. For fun on the weekends, he and his wife would go out to dinner. He couldn't remember the name, but told me it was right in front of the courthouse. I told him I might check it out. He also told me the name of his church. I might also visit there.

He began talking to Macy, "Is that your baby? That's a pretty baby! That's a pretty baby..."

I watched him as he ate the tomatoes they brought in. I told him my great-grandfather plants tomatoes and they are awful good. He said he didn't like the ones in the store as much because they were kind of hard. I agreed with him.

We both like John Wayne. He said that was one of his favourites. As we coloured a picture we talked of it. It was a picture of a deer. He had a hard time coloring because his hands were shaking. He said he liked to color but he wasn't the best at it. I told him he wasn't the worst at it either and he got a big kick out of that.

One of the things that impressed me the most about Jimmy Brown is that he never complained. I made it a point after so many optimistic answers to see if he ever would. Not once.

Another thing that impressed me most about Jimmy Brown is that he was learning how to read and write. Apparently he was working very hard at it. When I saw his room later there were word labels on everything and worksheets on his nightstand.

He said his family didn't come around but the very rare occasion but he only had good things to say about them.

Jimmy Brown had a Cocker Spaniel once, apparently it lived for fifteen years! He forgot it's name but it was "a real pet to him."

Another splotch local color on the alzheimer's front was Regina. She had yellow-shaded sunglasses on. She loved history. We always tried one way or the other to ask her what her favourite era in history was and she would always confusedly say "I like the history that happened in the past" or "I like the history you read about in lesson books." She said she hoped her father would let her go to school. I told her my brother might be teaching history. She told me she was seventeen. I told her she didn't look over sixteen.

Jule? That was what the named sounded like. She fell asleep a lot. Once holding one of the students hands.

Bedford? I think that was it, he kept trying to talk to the lady beside him with the headphones on. He didn't want to play ball.

And by ball I mean beachball. Several of them started tossing it around. They could catch and throw, every one of them.

After while another fellow and I went to Jimmy Brown's room to play checkers. He seemed to have a lot of fun with that. He kept trying to move the wrong piece. He hadn't played in so long. On his bed was a stuffed menagerie that he had won playing BINGO. I saw pictures of his family. The other fellow playing him in checkers said towards the end of the game that "I've only got two kings and a soldier" and Jimmy Brown got the biggest kick out of that.

Another woman named Boots (she actually had a long list of names, this was the consensus) was dancing with one of the girl students. They walked back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and sat down for a second and then back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. She would sing songs. They sounded really good to me. Really.

I think the nurses there are the true heroines in the world. Could these be "the least of these" Jesus talked about? They will not remember us, most cannot remember their names or the names of their family. We just had to do it because it was the right thing to do. To care for these people and to love them.

There is a Fairty Tale World in the Alzheimer's wing at Bradley Healthcare. All you have to do is walk in and if you can let go for a second and try to dip a toe in the pool of their postulations then you will get what they get. All the Wonders from Wonderland and all the Nevers from Neverland.

It's what we are supposed to do.

I can't forget any of that.

Secret Passage

I always imagined this hidden cave that went deep into nowhere. Like a portal. And at the end of this cave their was a room filled with cloth-bound books, tomes really, and the lettering was all in cursive and ink and the room was lit by wax candles. And all the posses of the past couldn't find this place nor could the falconer's of the future tame it's wild hope.

And in the books were memories so vivid and dreams long kept. And if I kept my eyes on those pages and kept a focus on those words I couldn't lose anything. I wouldn't feel sorrow, I wouldn't write laments, I couldn't miss anyone.

But that place isn't real.

And when I see an old friend, even old as in I haven't seen them in a few months, and I see the change in their face and hair and dress and manner. I become very sad. Because one day I will be in there life no more, and when they see me they won't run up and hug me or shake my hand, if they acknowledge me at all. Not because they are snobs or apathetic, because as time passes so does circumstance from one cache of allowances to the next.

Because people do eventually get a driver's liscence, and graduate, and get jobs and spouses and they move away and they die. These are the things that I fear because they require an all too often dull and lifeless exeunt of that character from my stage that I so loved sharing with them.

Part of me hates choosing favourites. I don't want a favourite. I want a community and I want to love every person in it and respect their oddities and their niche in the great social habitat. I don't want them to have favourites either, but I know they eventually will as this is part of life. And it isn't wrong I don't suppose.

The passage of time is a secret one. It does it's work and before we know it we are too deep in to retreat. We all make the same mistake.

I think it's funny how I hardly ever think of my sense of smell in the same way I register sights and sounds and tangible touch (perhaps the only sense less noticeable than scent is taste). But, whenever I remember I always have this overcoming sensation of what seems like a sort of smell. Memory has a pleasing aroma. Nostalgia is what is smells like.

When I think about Heaven, as I sometimes do, one of the biggest beauties I think of is the fact that we will all be together and I think we will all feel in love and we won't have any favourites, but we'll all enjoy each other and every moment will be better than the last and the Throne of God will be the reason.

And there won't be any real need for memory because it's all there and it's all going to stay there and we won't have to see all we've missed in a friend's face and we will never again have to say goodbye.

And that's all the hope I have.

To listen to this on youtube click here

Our God

Our God is greater

Our God is stronger

God you are higher than any other

Our God is Healer

Awesome in power

Our God.

--Chris Tomlin, "Our God"

The latest religious trend in America right now is tolerance. Now I agree with tolerance, because I think a forced faith is a fake faith. I don't think we can terrorize people into believing what we do. But I don't agree with tolerance in the same way that most people do. To me, tolerance is not saying, "well I think I'm right, but then again you may be right." And it is certainly not, "everyone's religion is right" To me, that is a lack of faith.

I've talked to people on the lines of salvation before. They ask me if I believe that if someone doesn't accept Jesus as Lord they are going to Hell. I always say yes and they always become furious. "How arrogant do you have to be to believe that out of all the religions yours is correct?"

This is an arrogance I can be proud of.

As the song goes. Our God is greater. That is my response to every mythology, every false doctrine, every idol, every worldly pleasure. Our God is greater and higher than any other (yes that means yours Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Atheists, Pantheists, etc...) He is awesome in power, He is love, He is Healer, He is Saviour, He is Merciful.

I ought never to brag on myself, yet I do. I don't know why. It's God I should be arrogant (though I believe arrogant is the wrong word) about. It's Him that I should brag on. It's a problem I've had for a while. We all want to be the hero of our own story. Jesus Christ was the greatest Hero of all time and if we submit to Him we become part of the body. We become heroes, but we become heroes in HIS story. It's the only story worth being heroic for. Worth risking everything and offering everything for. It requires bravery.

The world will try to tell us that we are adherents to only one possible solution in the great jigsaw puzzle of salvation. But they are wrong. They are wrong and we are right. If you know me, you've heard me say that before, "I'm wrong, you're right." This time, however, I am not trying to confirm my merely human stance on an argument, but I am defending the very sovereignty of God Almighty. The One, the Only.

We can be famous for any number of things, but as that pioneering Christian rock band Audio Adrenaline said, We're "never gonna be as big as Jesus." What are we doing to look out for His reputation? If you are a CHRISTian you are wearing His name. How are we truly proving that our God is greater? Are we proving it by looking like the rest of the world? I don't know about that. We can't really defend God, He needs no defense, but we are in many ways responsible for His reputation here on planet Earth. We are the body.

A Christian author I admire by the name of Philip Yancey wrote a book addressing the question, "Where's God when it hurts?" He summed it up extraordinarily well when he said, "the answer to that is another question, 'Where's the church when it hurts?'"

Our God is truly greater, but we aren't showing it. Other religions are. Mormons and Jehovah's Witness get evangelism, Muslims understand passion and being radically dedicated to their faith to the point of death, Hindus and Buddhists understand self-denial and leaving behind the love of this world. What do we understand?

I think there is much hope. That's understandably odd of me to say after a long string of critical responses to the American church and Christianity. I'm seeing more books and more pastors and more congregations becoming dedicated to the Gospel of the Bible. I'm in that backpedaling area also. Trying to brush off all the dust and debris of last decade's dumbed-down doctrine. I've never been Old Faithful. I'm no geyser I'm afraid. I've always kind of had to sputter and wheeze before I get any significant waterworks.

I just so believe in a body of believers that are not dipping their toes in the pool but diving in. With full-blooded heat or maniacal cold (whichever way you personify a sold-out Christianity just so long as it isn't lukewarm). We have to live like our God is the only God, greater than anything. We have to live courageous stories and know that if our God is for us, then who can be against us? Who can ever stop us?

Citizens, we have got to believe that.

Leaving

To watch this as an audioblog on YouTube instead, click here

We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting, and the climax and the resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn't it? It might be time for you to go. It might be time to change. To shine out. I want to repeat one word for you.

Leave.

Roll the word around on your tongue for a bit. It is a beautiful word isn't it? So strong, and forceful. The way you have always wanted to be. And you will not be alone. You have never been alone. Don't worry, everything will still be here when you get back. It is you who will have changed.
--Don Miller, Through Painted Deserts

Leaving.

7/20/11

Or should I say LEEving. There it is citizens, the next stop on the Classical Ride. It's two and a half hours from my world, so you know, weekend visits aren't impossible or even impropable. In fact, they will definitely happen often. But this is still leaving. This is still the abandonment of all the noble organizations that are still in my life due to youth. They won't be here waiting for me when I get back, they will be the ownership of others.

That's the one thing I disagree with in the beautiful Don Miller passage above, "everything will still be here when you get back." Even if it is here, it won't be the same. Everything will be changing while I have adventures in the collegiate camp.

Recently I've arrived at the beauty of not knowing in my own life. I have no idea what the future holds for me. Not a pinch of a notion. I am not my own though. I'm the product of an Author. The Author of such bestselling works as Creation, Salvation of Mankind, and Heaven. Needless to say I'm in good hands. But oh how wretched it can sometimes be to have to change everything for the sake of a greater, future good.

Change seems to make everything familiar sad. Like music and movies and books and people and places. They all become something other than your own. And you feel a little betrayed by them and unable to trust them. When you leave you have to give things away and release holds, because you can't truly say what's to happen to you or them. It would be unfair to try and keep everything safe in an aquarium for you to come back to. But it's what we want to do. It's a natural sort of vanity.

One month from yesterday. It's gaining on me.

7/25/11

My life has been a lot of loose ends. Life has never felt like a progression. It's always been a book in my hands. It's no wonder my favourite feeling is the sixth sense of nostalgia and my preferred pasttime is playing out the future in my mind. I'm technically not allowed to read ahead. It's kind of a mystery novel. But I can look in the previous pages for clues. I can read on the back flap about the author (incidentally it's an enormous backflap), I can listen to the reviews written by those I know and love all over the cover. I don't mind that the writer's name is the biggest thing on the book, that's the way it should be. I don't mind that my name is really only a subtitle. Merely a "by the way" after the colon. It helps that the preface is made of promises (incidentally it's an enormous preface). Every sixty pages or so a loose end is tethered, but some knots take a lot longer to tie.

College seems like another loose end. Why am I going to this particular place? What am I to do there? Why am I saying goodbye to things I know will never be again.

But then why would I spurn the pages that will never be read if they are not read now.

7/28/11

I am going away for a while,

but I'll be back, don't try and follow me.

Cause I'll return as soon as possible.

See I'm trying to find my place,

but it might not be here where I feel safe

--Paramore, Misguided Ghosts

I feel very safe here. I've spent a long time building a life here. I have perscribed characters and plans for the next scenes. But those plans aren't applicable any longer. I find myself talking with my friends and making plans for this month or that. Then, oh wait, I'll be in college.

I'm leaving with questions and the appropriate punctuation is in my pupils. But I have to wonder, what makes me think I'll come back home with answers. Maybe, I'll come back with more questions.

Calling this a "step" seems like an understatement. A mean a step lifts up a foot and then plops it down. I'm not so Matrix as to put four years of my life in a single step. It's more like a dive or something of that nature. Like something entirely new that will have to shape me for a while. Like little Lucy stepping through a wardrobe. And I know that you can't step into a wardrobe without stepping into a war worth fighting. New Narnias do, after all, await.

8/4/11

Just because everything's changing, doesn't mean it's never been this way before

All you can do is try and know who your friends are, as you head off to the war

Pick a star on the dark horizon and follow the light

You'll come back when it's over

No need to say goodbye

--Regina Spektor, The Call

My story isn't really anything new I don't suppose. They say change is the only constant but I say there is a constant a lot less ironic than that. God the Father is, as Owl City would say, "the only north star I would follow this far."

I do know who my friends are, that's for sure. The truest. They are the strangest group of people, it's enough that they pray for me and it's evident. I don't want to be a cynic anymore. I want to be a hopeless romantic again. Why can't life be a story?

This is the Pilgrim's Progress citizens. It's tearing through every thick slough of despair and every doubting castle towards the celestial city. I'm all about the anthem, it plays in my ear. You know it if you hear it too. It's what we all call, The Call.

Listen.

I can't keep a straight face and say this is not the end

Not if you want it, it's upon us and I wanna say it's sinking in.

So think real slow, don't forget that yes is yes and no is no

Melting prints of grass and snow, means you may forget the way to get back home.

--Relient K, (This is the End)

I've found that things are always dying. I'm not being morbid but beggar this thought: babies die into children, children into young adults which die into adults, which die into the elderly which finally die into spirits. Not always in that order. Habits die into hobbies which die into traditions. Affection dies into love and annoyance dies into hate. Interest dies into passion, theories die into truths. Thoughts die into actions or else they simply die into oblivion. I will die into a lot of new bodies before this dress rehearsal is over with.

So is this the end? I can't look at you with a straight face and say it isn't. Of course it is, but it is also the beginning. Birth rides in on the inhale and death dallies out on the exhale. It's simultaneous.

Tonight I was among friends. Two young people who are like family were outdoors with me under the charcoal skies that were quiet firmamental embers on our scene. I looked at them being silly with their classic faces: one on a bike and one frolicking with a husky pup. I wanted to take a picture, then I wanted to remember, then I wanted to write of it. I just wanted to keep it. I realized things like that can't be pressed in big books like leaves or taped into scrapbooks like photographs. What can we do with such beauties? I don't know the answer to that except that I want to keep them.

8/18/11

Long Live all the mountains we moved

I had the time of my life fighting dragons with you

--Taylor Swift, Long Live

There are so many things we want to live on in our lives. My 18 years in the same place are what I most want to live on. I want every memory and every face and every adventure to live on somehow. I want to reside in the legactic lands of eternity or in the precursors thereof. I still wonder if there isn't a state of mind where Past, Present, and Future aren't sitting around in a pub having a few drinks and sharing a good rapport instead of competing. I love my home and everyone here. My friends and family are what I am most proud of. They are what I most love talking about. It was a gift, being part of their stories. I had the time of my life. We fought dragons, moved mountains, made magic, wrote poems, cheered, fought, explored. We were the kings and queens, we were the heroes and heroines. We crashed through walls. I mean it.

So long live every moment I had with every one of you.

Long live your stories.

Long live your memories.

Long live

Now, I'll say goodbye.

I'll be right back.