A Quote

"Prayer isn't a time for holy thoughts, or purity, or carefully crafted phrases, she was discovering. It's a time for rage, for pain, for despair and hope. A time to sit in the dirt and joy of everyday life, to purge herself of the questions that plagued her by flinging them at God. Sometimes when she prayed, all she could do was sit there with her torso ripped apart and her guts in her hands. When you pray you sweat blood."

Laryn Kragt Bakker
Clutching Dust and Stars


So much, we fear letting it out. Letting what out? Everything. We fear that wild thing within us. That thing that feels and hurts and loves and that is beyond our control. We fear it and we fear for it. For if we let that out and it is rejected, our very soul, the core of our being, will have been rejected. There is no greater pain imaginable. Yet the joy to be found if we would just let it out--if we could just truly let ourselves be ourselves--would be immense, beyond measure.
Instead, we veil ourselves with pretense and social norms.
Humans are the only creatures on Earth so wrapped in self-hate that they constantly reinvent who they are and how they appear, refusing to embrace the truth of who they are.

Heart Transplant

I need a heart transplant.
I am afraid that mine simply will not do.
The blood is pumping but I can't
go on holding my breath for you.
Someone grab a syringe
I'm going to need a shot to the heart
to save me from myself. I won't cringe.
Stop my heart. Hit restart.
I'm begging you please.
Don't leave me with myself:
the judge impossible to appease.
Don't take the book on me and place it on the shelf.
I need a heart transplant.
I am afraid that mine simply will not do.
the beats are growing scant.
My lips are turning blue.
I'm going to need a shot to the heart
to save me from myself. I won't cringe.
Stop my heart. Hit restart.
I'm begging you please.
Give me something new;
Don't do what you always do.
I can't go on living
when my world is all deceiving.
There's nothing left to lose.
I've got nothing to excuse
No one and nothing anymore
Now I'm lying on the floor
Just the doctor at the door
ready to give me a heart transplant.

Perfectionism

A perfectionist will not release their work until they deem it up to their standards. But I wonder if this reluctance to share their work has more to do with fear than academics. Fear of failing to live up to one's own standards, fear of admitting that you are not what you think you are, fear of...not being perfect. It doesn't matter which one it is or if it's something different altogether, in the end it is an insecurity.

Knitting

The most interesting thing about knitting is that if you miss one stitch, and don't catch it, the whole work will unravel before your eyes. What powerful imagery!
Life can be like that sometimes. You miss one important stitch and before you know it, everything comes undone. All you can do is attempt to remedy, or put a final knot in, cut the cord and begin anew.

No More Kings

Plucked eyebrows and guitar strings
stop telling me who to be
I wish I could grow some wings
In America, there are no kings

Black on white / cross it all out
red on black / I can't bear this
Right the wrong / stop living these lies
Shut up and just sing

[insert dramatic and severely impassioned chant verging on scream]

Looking for words in all the wrong places
Can't find love if you haven't found your heart
Don't tell me about the world
You've never opened your eyes to see it

Midnight cocktails and weddings in spring
I'm not buying into your vision of reality
Don't bother me, I'll be on my childhood swing
In America there are no kings

Today

It's a rainy day. A real big dinner and hot chocolate day.
It's a good day. A definite do everything because you love it day.
It's a painful day. A demonstration of the long memory of the heart kind of a day.

freedom from self-imposed bondage

There is someone else living inside me, sharing this skin with me. But you would never know it. I want to let her out-to feel the sun shine on her face, to dance in the fervent wind, to know the taste of freedom lingering on her lips. I keep her in chains. In a way, she frightens me. She is so passionate about life. About injustice. About love. People wouldn't like me very much if they knew we shared a home. Slowly, she works for her freedom, this indentured servant of mine.
I wait for the day she finally overthrows me with joy. On that day, when I escape the prison in which I have locked myself, not even gravity will hold me down.

On Action

Passion is believing with the whole body.

On Taxidermy

Life, without desire, passion and fervor, is a taxidermied animal. It certainly looks alive but the heart has been taken out.

Music

Music speaks the language no tongue can rightly utter. It tells the story no imagery quite expresses. We turn to music to say the things we cannot. We turn to music to remind us that the world is larger than just ourselves.
We are not alone in this world. We are a symphony called the human race. The brass does battle with the woodwinds, and at other times live in harmony. The orchestra watches the conductor, and at other times plays to their own beat.
But all the while, we are not alone. We are the most beautiful music no ear can hear.

On Aging

We start out this life at a great disadvantage with the rest of the human race. We start out as two cells desperately looking for each other. Finally,we find ourselves. We grow within the Love of our mothers and we love ourselves. But then our whole world collapses around us and we must escape our meditation and flee to the unknown. Our greatest disadvantage is not that we are small. It is not that we cannot fend for ourselves. No, Our greatest obstacle is that we must learn to trust the untrustworthy. We must learn to love the unlovable. We must give our lives over and believe that our families will rise to the task. The rest of the aged human race does not have this need. They grow and forget what they learned. Until time finds them at last and they are returned to their humble state. Their disadvantage is greater still. They know how untrustworthy and how unlovable they, themselves are. They must humble themselves and believe that someone will come to their aid.

Bipolar Disorder

There is a tendency of many to live life with a bipolar disorder. There is the life we live when we are alone and the life that lives through us when we engage with society. Then there are those who have moved beyond the insanity and pain that is caused by living two lives with one body.

Miles to go Before I Sleep

Death has never scared me much in the past. But fear is not the right word for what I'm feeling now. Death would be a disappointment. I'm finally getting to the point where I know what I can accomplish and what I mean to other people.
Frost says it best "The woods are lovely dark and deep, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep."

Hope

Hope looks far beyond present circumstance. Hope strives. Hope waits. And most of all, Hope does not forget to love.

Do Your Best

Your best isn't good enough if your heart isn't in it.

Sunny with a Chance of Meteor Strike

Some ideas fall like meteors from heaven. But if you spend your life waiting for one of those, you'll likely spend your whole life daft and dumb--waiting. And if one does come, it may just strike you in the head and it may just be too much for your poor skull to handle.

Buried Treasure

Finding a thought worth having is not like finding buried treasure. It's much more like farming. Turn the soil. Plant some good thought seeds. And keep the field free of weeds--the thoughts will find you.

Good Company

There is a big difference between being with someone and just being next to them.

Love Yourself Too

They say you should love your neighbor as yourself, but what if you aren't very good at loving yourself?
Or what if you forget to love yourself in the midst of loving others?

Before you can care for others, you have to take care of yourself.
Before you can love others, you must first love yourself.

Forgetfulness

There was a time in my life when I was quite good at forgetting myself. A time when I could not understand why I would listen to myself when there was a whole world to hear. There was a time, a time not now.

It is good to be altruistic, to not listen so strongly to yourself, but only if you do not forget yourself entirely in the process.

Glimpses of a World Lost

I often find myself desiring to take a photograph but one object or another has been placed in the middle of my artistic vision. The only feeling I have is dismay. I've come to realize, though, that my dismay is less about my ideal photograph than the disparity between reality and my ideal world. Perhaps I better start living in the world that's here instead of hunting for glimpses of a reality that is no longer present...But I don't think I will. The search for these portals to that lost world shall continue. I will persist to dismay that the world is not what it could be, but I will not let my dream slip away without pursuit.

Water

Water, in whatever form it comes, has the peculiar power to unlock something deep within the human psyche. Water is emotion, is mystery, is passion. It drives us to dream. It prays us to ponder. It asks us to answer those question with which we have struggled. The eyes may be the windows to the soul, but water is certainly the door.

virtue

Virtue is innosence that has been put to the test and passed.

Beauty

Why is it that the world seems most beautiful when you feel least like enjoying it?

Truth

I wonder, if a spell that caused me to only be able to speak whole and complete truth was cast upon me, what would I be able to say?

Blank Paper

When I see blank paper, one of two things occur:

1. I feel compelled to fill the space (or)

2. I see the potential it holds and write nothing, intimidated by what the paper could be.

There could be a lot more to blank paper than I let there be.

Time

It's hard to really get a grasp on time. We can see a centuries old building, a 2500 year old tree or a 300 year old turtle and still not get it. There are movies and books to show us the past and the lives of others, but without investing large amounts of our own time we can't even begin to get a grasp on time. When it comes to experience and history we show a remarkable inability to look beyond ourselves.

Forgiveness

Sometimes, the hardest person to forgive is yourself.

Roots

Sequoia tress, like the Redwoods in California, grow to be the tallest living things in the world. Yet they have very shallow roots. If one grew alone, a breeze could knock it over. But Sequoias grow in clusters, allowing their roots to intermingle. This knotting of roots provides them with the stability they require to reach great heights.

Judgement

"Don't judge me." It's a phrase I often hear from others and which has always bothered me. Yet I heard the words escape my mouth. The phrase is an epidemic. So terrified of being judged is this generation that we assume judgment is around every corner and beg for it to leave us alone. Perhaps this is just because we hate and are ashamed of the judgments we cast on others. We fear that one day they will be pointed back our direction.

White-Wash

That white-picket fence that everyone's talking about (alright, so it's just me talking about it)-- that place where you can retire and rest--has to be white-washed. It isn't good enough on its own, so they made it look better. But the thing about white-wash is that it has to be re-done yearly or the illusion of perfection will be eroded by reality and everyone could see just how much that white-picket fence isn't what it's cracked up to be. And that could be the end of capitalist society as America knows it. It could be the dawn of something must better but the end of the land lords of the white-picket fence.

Hopefully my obsession with the American dream will ebb and be taken on by a new topic for thought.

Waiting

I was recently house-sitting for a friend. There were a lot of good things I learned, but the most interesting thing I noticed was simply the manner in which I lived. Knowing someone was coming back to check up on my actions drastically increased my productivity and maturity level. I lived better. If only I would live all my life like I was waiting...

Rebel Without a Cause

There are two ways to read this post's title: Rebel as a noun, in which case you are defining someone. and Rebel as a verb, which is what a rebel (noun) without a cause tells everyone else to do. Rebel from everything you think you know, everything that is in place and do so simply because you can. Because there is a chance it isn't right. You don't need to really think about it. All you need to do is think about how thinking about whether or not it is right.
But can you ever rebel from everything? Can you walk a path that has yet to be tread?
It's a lonely thing to do. They form packs of rebels. But can they rebel from themselves?
They preach freedom and yet they are enslaved to themselves.

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of rebels with good reasons for their rebellion. And I applaud them. But there is a sect of people who rebel against everything they have been taught, told and seen because they have been told to and because they think it is cool. It is those who are slaves to the rebellion.

Just Be Yourself

Everyone tells you to just be yourself. But first you have to know who you are.
However, who you are is in flux. It is somewhere in between where you have been and where you are going. It is the point between who you have been and who you will be. Who you are is who you are becoming. But can you ever really know that?
You know where you've been, and you know where you intend to go, but do you know where you are actually going?
Decide who you will be. Be that person. Don't just be yourself, that's confusing and in the end won't get you very far. You'll never grow if you just spend your time being who you have always been.
We could all use a little improvement, alright, a lot of improvement.
Be who you will be. Be who you want to become.

Lies

The most dangerous lies are the ones that tell you that you already believe them.

Compassion and Confession

In a world of increasingly lonely and separated people, where technologies that were meant to bring us all together have separated us, I think we need to take a new look at what friendship means. I have around 300 friends on facebook. What does that really mean? I think it means I at one point in time was friendly with or an acquaintance of around 300 people. But how many were truly friends?

Friendship has less to do with convenience and compatibility than it does with love. That love may take time to develop, but that is what makes a true friend.

So many profess to desire community, but what is really desired are all the glamorous aspects of community and fellowship. We want the sense of being a part of something, we want the caring and love. But what we want to exclude is the compassion (the suffering along with others), and the confession. Until we can be real with each other and share our faults as well as our virtues, we have yet to master friendship. Until we live in a place where a member can bring to the whole their troubles and their struggles, both internal and external, then we have yet to master community.

I know I’m not there yet. I have a few true friends, and I hope to become more real with the rest. I have a small community with those few friends, but I look forward to its expansion.

Life and Death (Continued)

Continuing to consider living out our beliefs I wondered about America. Most people I know are dissatisfied. They want something else. They are not quite sure what it is, sometimes they are, but not really. If people knew what they wanted they would stop wanting things. But dissatisfaction seems to characterize America. We don’t like our lives and we don’t like what we have. If we don’t like our lives, then we must not like our beliefs. As a society what we believe in is self-importance and finding new ways to demonstrate it.

Life and Death

Today I thought about death. I considered the pain of various methods of dying. I pondered the reasons people allow themselves to die. There is this idea of going down in a blaze of glory. Death can be the fastest way to achieve glory and to ensure you are remembered as you really want to be. All you have to do is die for something other people believe in. But it seems to me that we live for what we believe in. That being the case, I am not sure I like what I believe. Most of it, but sometimes I just do things and I look back on the day and am repulsed by how selfish I was or how prideful or how inconsiderate I managed to be.

Alone in the Universe

There may be life on Jupiter’s moon Europa. But I wonder, if we found life elsewhere in the universe, would that change anything? Policy would change. Our formal philosophies would change. Would we change? Would our actions reflect our new knowledge?
There are people in my own community homeless and hungry, but what have I done for them? My life hasn’t changed for them, and I am ashamed to say it, so I can’t imagine my life will change for microbes in and ocean, under miles of ice, 5 times further away than the sun.
That is a truly depressing thought.