Poetry

Slow to wake once again today... the lack of sleep from just staying up later for no good reason has caught up with me... Have been fighting a bad headache most of the day... maybe it's from being too hot (making the mental note that spring is here & there is no need to wear a T-shirt under my dress shirt for warmth any more). Maybe from not hydrating enough.. maybe from change in air pressure, maybe from having too much hair & shaking my head to try to flip it off my brow (though it's not quite long enough for that), or maybe just from being tired.

managed to zombie through work today. Nothing pressing, nothing too exciting. Did some work & went home. Tried napping in my car over lunch & then returning to eat leftover fettucini alfredo & foccacia bread (both cooked yesterday for supper with a friend) at my desk. Had a nap after work, too. The mix of dreams sneaking in & leaving me restless as I (mostly) slept...

Awoke to a quiet house at 7 something PM, checked e-mail & facebook with not too much for new info from friends. Felt lonely in the middle of this, but again, parts of it was feeling generally grotty from the headache.

The headache just wouldn't leave today. After Nap II, ate some leftover stir-fry (chicken, veggies, cashews & a lovely orange-ginger sauce from safeway (V&H brand I think)) & watched an episode of Gilmore Girls. Garnered a few laughs from that... thought about proposals & marriage & kisses, which didn't necessarily help the loneliness....

Was hoping to relax tonight. To paint G.I. Joes & maybe do laundry. The headache sort of got in the way of my motivation, so decided to take the better part of valour & sink deep into a warm bath.... While in the tub fiddled with the assembly of G.I. joe parts into complete figures, trying to figure out the characters of the last couple of possible creations... thought about reading more in the adventures of the Green Lantern Corps, but settled in on reading some out of "Good Poems for Hard Times", a collection of poems gathered by Garrison Keillor that was recommended to me by two wise friends whose voices I deeply respect (one who owned the book, the other reading it for the first time)....

... last Tuesday, I had time to read the introduction to the book, along with Azar Nafizi's essay in the book "My sister guard your veil, My brother guard your eyes". Both passages both shook & comforted me. I've been meaning to write about it, but haven't sat down to scribble it all out yet. Both passages talked about the power of the written word & how many revolutions, & how many internal heart revolutions, are inspired by the written word. This has spoken to me deeply. It's funny how that in all my scheming of trying to figure out how to make a difference in the world, that I neglect my gift of writing. I wonder if it is a universal thing that we despise our own gifts because they are part of our nature - they are not 'easy', for truly most of our gifts cost us dearly, but they just 'are'.... I write because, well, that's what I do. It's in my nature, and so I don't treat it as something special - in the same way that I'm prone to not seeing myself as something special. I'm just me... Other people are amazing & breathtaking.. I'm just me. Maybe it's that I've lived with myself for too long & see all the mundane & forget the glory....

.... but this idea has been haunting me over the week. Especially in places like Sunday where I spent most of church in relative states of grieving. Weeping for the four characters from the Requiem movie, praying for sick friends & watching them to try to be there to catch them if they fell... in the middle of the frustrations, the 'heart sickness' if you will of hope deferred, of this sense of powerlessness of feeling crippled to help & make a difference in the world around me & the people next to me, there is still a voice that speaks of words to be written....

...though at the same time I keep hearing the words of Isaiah 40 quoted to me. In that passage, the Voice calls Isaiah to cry, to yell, to speak & Isaiah, or the voice in the wilderness, or Jesus oro someone, replies:

"What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field: the grass withers, the flower fades: because the spirit of the LORD bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass. The grass withers, the flower fades: but the word of our God shall stand for ever."

Again & again, I think of 'what should I write', this is the words that I hear in my head. I have no great ideas of what to spill onto the page (other than the range of drivel & profundities that gets dropped into the blog).... & this quote doesn't help fill the gap or give any good story ideas or essay topics, or so I think. All it says is that we are fragile, we fade, we live in this moment of incredible beauty & then it's gone... all that is eternal is God, His words, His voice that speaks always....

...and there is an aspect of where this was felt in the poetry tonight... they are poems in the section called "Kindness to snails" & they are primarily poems of the incredibly mundane things - just life stuff. Lighting fires, starting cars, washing babies, cold mornings, being nice to a wayward snail... but in the power of words, all become touched with so much beauty. The artist's eye seems the moment, turns the lens of the literary camera ever so slightly to catch a different angle, a difference glint of light & in an instant the mundane whispers of glory. In a moment the flowers & grass become clothed more brilliantly than solomon in all his glory... and the most normal of things becomes extraordinary & leaves the reader breathless... in gratitude for the gift of another moment of life & in awe of being able to feel a fraction of what is being spoken....

In the middle of the words, while lounging in the tub, the headache faded, fog lifted.... yesterday at church we talked a bit about the speed of life & not leaving time for our souls to catch up... Somewhere in these moments of poetry, the soul finds home & rest.... and the loneliness fades as there is some connection between writer & reader, voice & listener.....

So I end my day, heart fuller than when I started. Head more clear. Tummy contented after being treated to chocolate ganache & strawberries. My skin still warm from the waters of the tub... there is such a beauty in the written word & I'm thankful that I have the gift to see that & be a part of it. Thankful to participate in the journey of 'the voice'... to speak & be spoken to, to know & to be unravelled in the process of being known...

Dipping in Jordan

Catching up on some writing:

I've been dragged into joining the Facebook 'movement'. Haven't taken the time to figure it out, but, as a good thing, it puts me in touch again with some old friends who I miss deeply. (haven't e-mailed these friends so far or enough, but that's a whole 'nother story).

Thursday at work, I'm checking facebook briefly & see a friend who has been battling sickness comment that they believe they may have encountered a miracle.

At first my heart leaps. Miracles are what I & many others have been praying for for this friend. I search, I look for details on her facebook, then other people's walls, no mention of what this miracle is.....

...and then the questions seep in. I think well, how would this friend know that they were healed? Is it like "feeling a bit better" healed or "my body is totally back to normal" healed? What if the sickness has just gone away temporarily & they'll relapse back into pain again shortly? How long do you wait before you call a miracle a miracle? Maybe medicine is helping?

...on & on came the flurry of questions until I finally realized what I was doing & then I felt like carp (which is sort of like feeling like crap, but fishier - or just a typo - sorry, random attempts at humour in the middle of me berating myself... laugh time over, back to the winge-ing).

Here I am beating up on God for not 'answering' my prayers when I pray them & then I get this quick message that may indicate that God has healed & answered the prayers of a lot of people who've been carrying this friend to God night & day & what do I do? I don't believe it. I'm skeptical, I want proof.

And I think how sad this is. How rough I am on God, that He just can't win with me.... If He doesn't 'act' as I want him to, then I'm mad at him & walk off in a huff. If He does do something, then I don't believe that he's done anything & I'm inspecting his workmanship, looking for holes, waiting for it to fall apart so I can wave my finger at him & say, "see, I told you so.... you're not answering my prayers like I want you to."

My friend Sharon B., whose parent's are doctors, chides me for the way I talk about doctors like it's one big conspiracy & they're all trying to keep us sick. She reminds me of how I seem to keep asking doctors to be 'God' - to magically wave some wand & heal people....

... and I treat God like this, too. I blame him if things don't work on my schedule or according to my will....

...and the suspicion? well, maybe it comes from just an overactive desire to want to believe... I want to believe that divine healing is real... it's just a hard thing to 'prove' to others & hence hard to prove to me & yeah... like I said, God doesn't get a break.

When I pray for someone, I want this surge of electricity to flow through me, I want my hand to grow hot, enflamed by some holy energy that surges into the person I'm praying for & I hope for the rush, the gasp of breath, as the person I'm praying for feels God's power moving through them, reforming cells, knitting things back together, dead or broken tissue reformed & recreated... and then to see them leap & jump knowing that they are healed & they'll never have to face this particular disease again.....

...but it doesn't seem to work like that. A lot of it is communal healing. We pray, we cry for each other, we hope, we get angry together, we laugh & tell jokes & try to make light of it & cheer up the person who is in pain.... we secretly curse our weaknesses & wonder if it's us that's breaking the chain, if it's us that doesn't have the right quota of faith & is somehow blocking the miracle from taking place.... but mostly we love. We show that we care, that someone matters to us enough that we'll kneel, we'll surround them with hearts aching for their well being & wellness....

... maybe in this cold world, this circle of love is healing in itself. Maybe this display of tenderness is more precious than our bodies which decay & fall apart.....

.... I think of all the people Jesus healed, even those he raised from the dead. Eventually all of them had 'relapses' - they all died & are buried in the ground.... but it's the healing of hearts, of souls that matters in eternity & is why we still read their stories today....

.... maybe true healing comes with less flash, less showmanship... maybe it comes in secret, after the praying is 'done' (though really it's never 'done').... maybe we wake up some day & go, "wow, I think I've experienced a miracle" & we wait for weeks to ensure there's no relapse & we don't shout it from the mountaintops 'cause we're really not sure what brought healing... but somewhere in our hearts, we hold on to the secret, the hope that it was a touch of the divine transforming our lives....

.... maybe healing seldom happens in the instant. Maybe it happens more over time. (Maybe I'm full of it & should stop trying to figure it out)....

... I feel a lot like Naaman, though... wanting healing, but wanting the big & flashy instead of wading into dirty old Jordan.....

Sorry God for being a putz & being so hard on you... not that you're not used to it by now, but still, you do lots of good things & I treat you pretty bad. Sorry.

Requiem

requiem

noun
1. a song or hymn of mourning composed or performed as a memorial to a dead person [syn: dirge]
2. a musical setting for a Mass celebrating the dead
3. a Mass celebrated for the dead

In music, a Mass for one or more dead persons, containing biblical passages and prayers for the admission of the dead to heaven. The term has been loosely applied to other musical compositions in honor of the dead. A German Requiem by Johannes Brahms, for example, uses texts from the Bible but is not a Mass.

I'd been warned.

Quite some time ago, a friend recommended the movie "Requiem for a Dream". Well, no, actually she recommended the music from the movie. Me being the obsessive collector type that I am figured I'd hunt down the movie & have had it sitting in my collection for nearly a year now. I'd heard it's a not-so happy movie & so have been waiting for a night where I didn't need to be happy for a while after.... I'd been warned by friends that it's a fairly devastating movie....

...so figured I had time tonight & after making a lovely stir fry sat down to watch the movie in the quiet of my house (roomies are out tonight). i'd braced myself, expecting it to be hard, painful... and had actually maybe overcompensated at the start. For the first half of the movie I'm thinking, where's the carnage? This isn't nearly as bad as people have told me... mostly just beautiful cinematography & characters that you start to really like in their messed up lives.... But the movie just builds & builds. By 70 minutes into the film, I'm trying to find the case so I can figure out how much longer this goes & hoping it will end swiftly & mercifully. At about 85 minutes in, it all goes in the crapper as the tragedy begins to reach conclusion & you watch the 'reaping' of seeds sown, watch lives crumble to bits as the fatal flaws emerge & the steel trap slams shut on these lives... 15 minutes later you reach the end, breathless, broken, watching lives of good people swallowed whole by the quest for significance, for love, for excitement, for a dream.....

I feel very alone right now. I crave the empty house & the roomies return will not solve the ache... I 'absord' in some ways the characters that I watch in movies. Right now I've got 4 peoples eyes & tears floating around in the imagery in my mind... that & the blasted soundtrack - beautiful, haunting, enticing, terrifying, hopeful... my heart & mind, the whispers of prayers reach out across the city tonight... the prayers search for lost souls in need of hope.... the prayers reach back to the past, both praying & thanking God for bringing friends through & bypassing the possibilities of the devastation that could have been.....

I think about the young girl last night, coming out of the movie theatre. She, like many of the rest her age, is dressed in tight clothes & showing off her cleavage. I hear her talking to a friend about calling for a cab & I see her walk back into the theatre & return a few minutes later. A silver car drives up & a door open. Her & a friend climb in & the car leaves.... A friend sees me looking at the girls leaving & comments, "yeah, I remember when I'd leave the theatre & all the pretty girls were actually my age".... but I'm lost in thought, begging, please God, let that be someone she knows in the car. Please let it not just be some guy she met. Help her get home safe....

... talked with a friend today about a lot of things... some of it was about dreams.... both of us have maybe sort of lost dreams we've had. I talked of dreams of being world changers & my friend commented that he couldn't remember ever having a dream like that.... I argued with him about that.... I remember bits & pieces of those dreams... partly 'cause they sounded like mine....

... I have lived a very sheltered life. I know that there is good & bad to this. I feel deeply & so have suffered things of the heart more than I maybe should for someone who has lived a pretty safe, pretty comfortable life.... I'm often theorized that I've felt enough pain to be able to relate, but not enough to debilitate me... there is some way that I am meant to be 'healer'... to bring whatever comfort I've recieved & share it around....

... what is the level of responsibility we take for each other? for our city & nation & planet? In the past I burned out my life trying to 'be there' for people & just flailing at the wind... now I sit more sheltered up in my house, my fortress of solitude & my heart looks out on the world through movies & books.... but where is the place of meeting, of getting dirty, of joining in the dark places to bring light..... do I even want this? What could I do for the four in this movie? What would I have to offer with a greater pull than the coke? There's not enough love in me (though I am connected to the source) to fill their voids of longing & liberate them from dependencies...

Just before Christmas I started seeing how limited my resources are & that's a part of why I joined up with the urban monastery community. I need to look less at me & more at the greater resources of community & ultimately of Christ to be able to change anything... but yet what to change... there are so many injustices & I think I talk more than I do. Dream more than act... Sure I love (more or less - pretty flawed & weak, but maybe a teeny bit) those I encounter, but I fear need, too. Fear being swallowed by it - fear that I'm not enough. That & I'm selfish. I want a life for 'me' - not that it's maybe that impressive of a life, but it's mine. I want friends, time, quiet places for creativity...

...and there is the dichotomy... I think I'd love to stay here in the quiet & live out my days in my quirkiness... but these 'windows' to the outside world open up longing... watching the four in the movie tonight, I take it personal... the same way that on Easter I took the lack of healing for a friend personally... I look out & think that 'my' world is under assault.... & I realize again, that none of this is mine. That even my breath is gift.... I claim nothing.... but it's a different sense of ownership - maybe it's still wrong - but it's this place of stewardship - this thing where you join with the One whose world it is & grieve & cry & ask for deliverance....

Maybe the sane people of the world don't wrestle with this stuff. Maybe others have the balance figured out. Have their 'boundaries' all set well (this after remembering a friend of mine pointing out the 'Boundaries' book in my library - a book given to me because I apparently 'suck' at boundaries. I'm still sort of bitter about the book & haven't really read it - first chapter or two, but yeah)....

... I look again at the mystery of the burning bush, the one that drew Moses in. "I must go & see this, " said Moses, " why is the bush not burnt up?" It was a miraculous sight - a bush all aflame, but yet not utterly consumed, not burnt to ash. How do we live this way? Aflame with the overwhelming ocean depth of God's love, poured into the thimble cup of us.... how does it not burst us wide open? I know we must live 'cracked' (how else does the light seep out), but how can the infinite indwell the finite, how can we love with the capacity that He loves with & not be destroyed by it....

"he that tries to save his life will lose it", says Jesus, "but he that loses his life for My sake shall find it".... I've recently come to embrace the idea that this means that we give up our quest to be 'somebody', that we stop trying to impress the world or prove ourselves to others.... we stop wearing the masks. I've started to embrace the idea that losing your life is to accept the reality of who you are, to walk in the full richness of your being, to live fully in the now, to realize that you are a gem in the crown of God, an arrow hidden in his quiver, the apple of His eye, the beloved of Jesus..... all of these are gifts given, not prizes earned.... death to self means receiving life from God & living in who he's made you to be instead of trying to be someone else that's 'better' than plain little old you....

...maybe this is a perversion of Jesus's words. Maybe it's exactly what he meant - or maybe it's somewhere in between. Time will be the tell... but maybe there is a requiem for each of us.... some song of grace that calls out to the ways we keep trying to destroy ourselves & beckons us to hope & life.... maybe some of us have been lucky enough to hear the requiem playing in the background before the train has jumped the tracks... maybe I'm one of those souls who 'got lucky' & somehow was 'weak' enough to drop my guard & let grace embrace me early in life... but there are so many others who need to hear the music, to listen to the siren song of melody that pulls them back from the edge, that calls from death to life, from hell to heaven.... how do we, how do I, be a people whose words, whose lives leave others unsettled? who are the fragrance of life that entices people to be embraced by grace instead of trying to fix it in their own way......

Celebration, Mediocrity, Dying, Resurrection

Well, I'm not one to toot my own horn normally, but yeah, I'll make an exception:

I think I hosted a pretty damn fine party on Saturday.

Had a bunch of friends old & new over at the house on Saturday & yeah, it went well. Pretty chaotic for me. Little tiny 1-2 minute conversations & then being pulled away or distracted to something else. But people seemed to enjoy themselves, so that's what matters.

I like hosting. I like serving. I find joy in it. Maybe I'm gifted with hospitality. Maybe it's just heart stuff... I still remember the line from "Life is beautiful" where the main character's dad smacks him upside the head for mocking their role as waiters. 'God is the first servant', the old man says. And i feel this is true. So my service of humanity in any big or small way is joining in with the servant heart of God & taking joy in seeing other's joy & of making their lives some tiny bit richer. This is why I think Jesus can say that giving a cup of cold water in His name is an important thing. It's maybe not so much the action, but the heart of love that calls us to bend, to kneel, to posture ourselves to place others needs & wants above our own.

Anyhow, it was fun. People looked happy & so that makes me feel all warm & fuzzy inside. Thanks to all who attended for making it a 'success'... made me feel rich with all the great people in my life.

Was thinking about the ideas of celebration & how it may be weird to thank people for coming out to a party & such, especially since it was sort of a psuedo-belated-birthday party for me. Normally b-day parties are all about the person who is celebrating the birthday & in an odd sense, I felt this was like that too though no one was all waiting on me hand & foot or anything. The celebration for me personally came in just realizing how much these people have blessed & enriched my life, past, present & (hopefully) future. My live would not really be worth the living if it wasn't for good & valued friends.... Even in my introversion & love of personal space, I'd die if I was alone.... or pray for death....

Quieter day today. Yesterday was spent cleaning & a bit of baking (icing cakes & making rhubarb crisps). Today was spent relaxing. Could've cleaned more, but the mess will wait. Pretty low mess party though - next to nothing to clean up. People ate most of the food, so just dumped the empty safeway trays in the garbage & picked up the loose paper plates & plastic cups.... very simple. Have to pull the exercise equipment out of the furnace room where it's hiding, but that's about it for remaining cleanup.

Random bits from the day:

- Batman Beyond: An episode where an aging Bruce Wayne is given a chance for youth again. Thought about what it would feel like to be a great hero, someone who has made a difference & to become old & frail & crippled. Wept at those thoughts. Wept at the idea of great men & women who are discarded & made a mockery of as they get older. Thought about Ecclesiasties & how Solomon laments that the good are forgotten like the evil, sometimes more quickly & how that no matter how much you do on this planet, nothing done under the sun will last. And, contrasting this with Song of Songs, thought about how maybe the only stuff that lasts is love & relationship & how that maybe it's enough to go through life just having loved one person & making their life better. Maybe that's all we really need to do to make a difference here on planet earth. Maybe it doesn't make a difference to only affect one life, unless you happen to be that one life & then it means everything.

- Finished the readings for this week. 1 Corinthians 15 & Isaiah 61. Again, both comforting & maddening passages. 1 Corinthians 15 is the great resurrection passage, the one that speaks that the resurrection, along with the cross, is central to our faith. If Jesus wasn't raised from the dead, then Christianity is a lie & completely false... if there is no risen Christ then everyone who talks of Jesus as more than just a good man or a good teacher is deluded at best or pathetic at worst. Our faith, my faith, relies on the reality of a risen Christ.... & yeah, this is again struggle place for me (see previous posts)... I believe that He is risen indeed, but I'm looking for the moments where I can feel His life coursing through every vein. Reading the passage today, I was looking to see if there's any place where it mentions that this new resurrection body happens this side of the grave & there was nothing. I wonder if instead of looking for resurrection power, of healing & casting out devils & things like this, instead I should be looking for weakness, frailty, fumbling & seeing God work through my limitations.

Isaiah 61 is likewise the passage that speaks of Jesus' (& our by extension) to preach good news, to lift up the brokenhearted & to set prisoners free.... it's a beautiful picture in this passage of bringing liberty & freedom to a people who have long been enslaved. For years I've taken this as a set of 'dream' verses. They stir deep within me a longing & an imagery of wanting to speak the words like Jesus did in Luke 4, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your ears'. This sounds like what I want to see: prisoners given freedom from whatever keeps them enslaved... but again it's hard to see that in the now - it seems so far away like some myth, some intangible dream....

Both passages speak of planting. 1 Corinthians speaks of all of us as seeds, our bodies planted in the ground awaiting new life. Isaiah talks that righteousness & praise will grow up like plants before the nations. I am reminded of Jesus' words in John 12:24 about how that unless a seed falls in the ground & dies it is alone. Once it dies it bears much fruit as new life, a new plant, grows from the broken, fractured heart of that seed. Is that what this life is for? In the middle of our dying is new life begun? Is this the only way to impact those around us, by dying? What does this 'dying' mean....

- in my conversations with one of my wonderful friends, I am becoming more & more aware of how much science & art have their common ground. There are industries to promote growth of these ventures, but yet they are run often by people who don't understand art or science & who only provide funding if they believe there is some return on investment. Those who can jump through the right hoops get funded. Those who don't, well, don't get funded. It seems that the really good science, like really good art, sort of gets overlooked because most true science & true art involves a lot of 'failure' - a lot of trying & finding that something 'doesn't work' or 'isn't the answer'. The artist & scientist learn that this 'failure' is just part of the process of exploring. It's finding what doesn't work that is as important as finding what does work in the end. For some reason the really great discoveries & great art come at a cost, a cost of lots of life given to pursue the 'truth' of what you're seeking.... But our society is geared for mediocrity. Those with the flashy stage acts or the popular scientific studies get funded. Those who will hide in a lab testing theory after theory, or in the quiet of their rooms with a guitar or spending years in smelly bars playing for 2-3 drunkards, the ones who at the end find their 'eureka' moment & produce something of relevance, these ones get overlooked, or have to barely eke out an existance before anyone recognizes what's actually there....

This too is vanity & vexation of spirit. Makes me feel like the world is a sucky place (oh & by the way, I think I see this at any of the engineering firms I've worked at/known, as well). Pop tunes get the airplay, deep soulful balads barely get heard....

- Had a brief chat with my brother & mentioned my complaint about a friend who is not well & I told him how it 'wasn't right' that this friend is suffering with sickness.... He wondered how I could make that statement - especially me as mr. shades-of-grey... I don't know. I probably suck in blaming doctors & blaming God when things aren't magically fixed. I don't think so rationally when it comes to friends & sickness... Maybe there is a higher purpose & I can't be so black & white. But I don't see it now, so I'll react out of my emotion & rebel against what is...until the darkness bleeds daylight.... (or until the Dayspring shows me how the light is going to come through this darkness)

- Talk with the community house tonight was good. Nice to work things through in community & hear the heart of everyone there. I'm not the only one in struggle, in wrestling. So this is maybe good. It excites me to watch people choose to be true to themselves & to chase the things that are on their heart. It's great to watch the internal compasses of people point 'true' & drive them into following what is their dream & passion...and it's beautiful to see passionate people go, "I can't do this on my own & I need the rest of you". Learning to grow in love & let our rough edges get honed by those who care about us.

I sort of alluded to my wrestling & started to get all overwhelmed & teary again... life just feels really 'big' right now.... which isn't a bad thing, just overwhelming

- Sort of related to the above: one more observation from the Green Lantern:Rebirth TPB (trade paper back). The battle in the series is the power of will against the power of fear. The only Green Lantern who does not become a puppet of Parallax, this embodiment of fear, is Kyle Raynor, the 'weakest' of the Green Lanterns. Or at least he feels the weakest 'cause he seems to be the only Lantern who knows fear, who lives with it every moment of every day. In the metaphor of the story, it is only the one who knows fear who can escape it's grasp. Only those who know their weaknesses who can admit their fears, name their fears, & not be held hostage by the need to look strong, be strong, all the while being manipulated by fear.....

this was encouraging for me with my 'much afraid' heart.... tonight at the meeting at the community house we talked about the things we fear are our weaknesses are the things through which strength will come eventually. Our failures bring wisdom, gifts, refining, revelation... the many little deaths we experience in the day to day somehow bring life... hope...resurrection for us & for others....

Great Big Sea

Slipped out at lunch today just to be away from the office for a while & hope for a break from the damned if you do, damned if you don't perspective. On the way back, listening to CKUA heard a Great Big Sea song called 'Lucky you, Lucky me'. A few tears into it, was reminded again that this is the reality we live in. We live with a God who makes (& keeps) covenant…. Who pledges things for as long as the rivers run, as long as the moon & sun endures. We exist in grace. Prisoners of hope, in the continual fairy tale of where at any moment night is turned to day, mourning to dancing, ashes to beauty….

200th post. 13 Apr AM notes

On the drive home last night, stopped in at a Chapters to pick up a poetry book that was praised during the gathering last night. Was in the middle of my funk & hoping that there'd be someone there, some divine appointment, who'd stop me & rescue me from my melancholy. Of course there was none, but at the same time had the realization of how much I'm an object in motion & how it would be harder to track me down 'cause I keep moving & not sitting still that long - maybe at home I rest, but there aren't that many others at home.

So left sort of daring God to come find me. While drifting off to sleep later that night wondered if that was a good idea or not. Lots of things he could do to 'stop' me… burn my house down, leave me crippled after an accident, health stuff… who knows… my fragility makes it easy for me to be stopped & I'm not so invulnerable or unstoppable as I think…

… dreams were there tonight. Woke with at least some memory of things. Was somewhere with community house people. Maybe at a church thing. Was out for a meal afterwards with people. David & someone were off in some other corner of the restaurant. I was with (maybe) Andy & a girl I don't recognize. She was newer to the city & trying to find her way. Had some discussion with her about her wanting to find roots & me feeling like a tumbleweed. I think I told her something to the effect that the drive for her to find roots & the drive for me to stay in motion maybe come from the same source & maybe it's God's leading. Sort of remember thinking even in the dream that I may have been feeding her a line of BS. Not sure if I believed what I was telling her either. She may have even been subtly asking me to stay, subtle flirting, but I didn't catch it strongly enough to give me reason to stay & so I was off again & wandered from the restaurant. Headed into some arcade, driven by an urge to play some racing game where I found myself not so in tune with the controls as I tried to move this car/future car/spaceship. As I tried harder & harder to control this vehicle, my head got closer & closer to the video game screen. Finally going through the screen & I found myself instead flying some D shaped ship barely bigger than myself. I was laying flat in it & it was sort of translucent & as you soared & dived, you could feel the rush of wind & the lurch of stomach as I rushed to keep up with the others in the race…. Seeing myself in my minds eye I may have looked Kree for a moment (one of the space races in Marvel comics)… but yeah, can't remember. Woke up somewhere after that.

Not as tired as I should be this morning, but still in a grump. Into work early after dropping David at the airport, so have had time to read the passages for today instead of jumping into work first thing.

As I open Isaiah 58 & read the opening lines, I start to condemn myself for my 'wickedness' & 'sins' & begin to lament that this passage should be encouraging, but I'm walking under this 'curse'. As I keep reading, I get to verse 6 & my perspectives change & it does become encouraging again. I'm reminded that the 'fast' God wants, the spiritual disciplines God wants are not necesarrily the random religious practices that I feel like I fail so much in. He calls for the 'fast', the discipline of serving & loving others, showing love, living justice - doing right to people & protecting, supporting, delivering the weak & oppressed. & yeah, that's what I've been whining about all week (& beyond) that I want to live in… and so yeah, this passage again becomes both encouraging & frustrating in that I've fallen into beating myself up 'cause of my non-religiousness & then get the sense that maybe it's OK. Who knows.. I feel kind of confuzzled… & don't think I'm thinking so straight right now….

Mark 5 confirms Isaiah 58 in the sense that it's just a big long story of Jesus doing exactly what is described in the latter half of Isaiah 58. As Messiah, Jesus is casting out devils, healing people, raising the dead. He lives His justice, setting prisoners free wherever he goes with just a word, just a touch & life & light floods into the lives of people who have been prisoners for far too long…
Interesting to see the responses of the people in the three miracles. After Jesus liberates the demon possessed man, the people beg him to leave 'cause He's disrupting their economy. In healing the woman with the bleeding that won't stop, the disciples, Jesus's friends, think he's crazy as He asks, "Who touched my clothes?". Finally in raising Jairus's daughter from the dead, the people laugh at & mock Jesus 'cause He figures the girl is only 'sleeping' when they 'know better' that she's really dead. I wonder how much I join the crowd of people in my response to Jesus's working in the world. How much do I feel inconvenienced, think he's crazy, or a fool in seeing what He does or promises to do?

Interesting, too to note His response to those who are healed. The demoniac He charges to go tell his story (the only place Jesus does this) & lovingly sends the man away to blaze the news of his liberation across the land. To the woman he speaks gently & tells her that faith has made her whole & he tells her to go & live in wholeness. He tells Jairus & family to eat & not talk about the whole thing… Again, He is unpredictable & not as expected…

Well, will start the day…. See what happens with this one.

RRRAAAGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!! - 12 Apr something

I think attempting a spiritual discipline for me always seems to default to showing my how undisciplined I am or how I'm just not good at spiritual disciplines or that I just gear my life differently than how spiritual disciplines work.

Over the course of this week I've been trying to follow through with the community house in morning & evening prayer (see previous posts of the writing exercises). Mostly it's been trying to find time to read the sections of the Bible suggested for the day & then write some & maybe 'pray' - though for me its the thoughts/conversations in my head with God or with myself that sometimes sneaks into being conversation with God, or is just me talking & maybe (hopefully, likely, of course) God is listening to me yammer on about whatever crap is running through my head. So it hasn't really felt like I'm maybe really doing 'prayer', but I guess close enough for me.

But even with this, it's been harder to fit the moments in. I'm realizing I do not gear my life well to doing this sort of thing - which is why I haven't done it for years. Waking for me is a process of groaning awake, dragging myself out of bed groggily & then pushing the clock to get to work before whenever I need to. There is no breakfast, no reading, no musing, no pause before heading out. OK, well, sometimes there is, but those are mostly on the procrastination days where I stare at my computer blankly for a while & check e-mail & random G.I. Joe message boards & other less brain capacity consuming things so that I can slowly wake up & feel human. The end of the day is the lingering in awake-ness for too long of trying to cram in all the list of things I wanted to fit into a day, but didn't, or just the empty search for that moment of significance to close the day....

And so, morning & evening prayer, that discipline, seems to not work so well....

...today was into work at 7:30 to prep for an 8AM meeting. Was all there on time & ready & not my usual disorganized self & felt kind of proud of that. Had a few moments between getting ready & the meeting start & so read Lamentations 3 while waiting for the others to join the conference call....

...this is what started my day & has helped spin the day to whatever it is now.

... Lamentations 3 is the middle of this book of mourning. It's Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, watching his beloved city destroyed, his beloved people butchered, slaughtered, raped, pillaged - he is watching the destruction of Jerusalem, the city of promise, Zion, the city of the King, the light of Israel.... and the book is where he pours out his lament....

...I remember long ago I read Lamentations over Bowness. It was back when I was working with the youth there & it tore my heart to watch good kids being chewed up by life - abuse, drugs, neglect, bad choices. This was the time where I spent so much time arguing with God, pleading with him to help these kids & it felt like nothing was happening, there is no release - no break from their pain, no release of grace or deliverance from heaven. And so one saturday I went up to this bench on Home road that overlooks bowness & read lamentations out loud - which I don't do. I'm a quieter person & so reading things out loud when no one's around is not so normal.

I remember the shift that happened in chapter 3. Reading it out loud, Chapters 1 & 2 & the first half of chapter 3 are all just hopeless, filled with grief & mourning for the destruction of a beloved people. Chapters 4&5 & the last part of 3 seem to be the same, but there is this shift that happens in chapter 3 - that I'd never seen before - where the perspective totally changes. The first half of the book is, well, like what I do, almost a passing blame onto God, or just being so overcome by grief that it's just sorrow without relent. But in the middle of three, Jeremiah becomes keenly aware of God's grace, His heart, His unfailing love & mercies that are new with each dawn... in this He realizes that God's heart is for him & his people & not against them & that this destruction is for some other, better purpose. Somewhat it is the destruction they/we had brought on themselves, but part of it is this refining process to cut out the cancer & bring (eventually) healing to his/His people.... and then the rest of the lament in chapters 4 & 5 are actually prayers of intercession, prayers of hope, realizing that God is present & wanting to rescue.....

...and so this is what I was reminded of. Reading Lamentations 3 today I was put back in that place - the place of struggle with God, the longing for deliverance, the not seeing His help for sure - pretty much what I expressed for Sunday....

And then the meeting started. Today was a day where all of the prep work with no results from days past suddenly all came together & we sort of saw almost results. It was a tad unnerving in some ways. For days, weeks, I've been trying to get to some projects, finding hurdle after hurdle, one more hoop to jump through after another. And today, things just accidentally came together - they just worked out & I was able to do a test in about 1/2 hour that I haven't been able to get to for weeks. And things seem to work. It's been this pending crisis that no one will ante up to investigate & they sort of have been waiting on me & giving me dirty looks 'cause I haven't gotten it done yet (mostly 'cause I'm swamped with other stuff). Today we sort of figured out that it's not going to be an issue & so it sort of became a non-event. People go, oh, great, that's not as broken as we thought & that's it....

So it was a bit of a let down. You put all that effort & prep-work in & the 'achievement' feels pretty dang hollow. But maybe that's all work (though the art stuff I'm doing doesn't feel like that - I like the process almost as much or more than the finished product).

Busy day. Ran from 8 til 2:30. Finally nuked some chili & ate it in the lab while listening to people try to debug a problem.

Other heartbreaks: One of the guys at work found out his wife might be leaving him. This stuff eats away at me. It's not my relationship, but it hurts when I hear of break-ups & it sits in my gut & gnaws away there. Listened to a woman at work talk to me of how her work is being hampered severely because of the cattiness & gossip of the other women in the office. And for whatever reason, management is more wanting to appease the catty women than to do anything for this woman & it's actually costing us business. It's crazy. I guess I don't understand gossip. I'm normally amazed that people talk about me & maybe I have low enough expectations of what people may or may not say about me, that I don't really worry about gossip. Maybe I just haven't been on the receiving end. Maybe it only hurts for me when the people close to me seem to misinterpret my actions/intentions... but yeah, I've somehow escaped the sting of gossip, but it's bad where I work & bad among women. It's crazy the stuff people say & the rumours & stories that get spread & it's just devastating the effects... it also makes me question again whether I should be moving companies ....

... came home after the rushed day & had a nap before heading to the community house. Woke up 'funny'... must've been tired 'cause I was out cold quickly & the nap seemed to go by quick. The negatives of all of the above thoughts had seemed to settle in & so I was struggling, wrestling with it all on the drive down to the house.

....it seems that scripture, the Bible, scares me... opening up the book again this week has left me feeling undone every time I read. Again, it just speaks of a world that is so real, too real... it just paints such desperate pictures of risk & danger & hope & deliverance & this God who is so big, but who could kill you with his love..... somehow everything He does is to save us, but He's crazy & while He's so gentle, he's sort of not, too - He's this wild man who will destroy nations to save his people, who will burn up everything you have to purify that one little nugget of gold that rests somewhere buried in your heart... He is so not safe & while He may be good, it sure scares the crap out of you in the process. He doesn't come to Abraham saying, "look, I'm going to ask you to kill your son, but really it's just a test. Follow through with this & at the last second, I'll stop you & it'll be all good".... Nope, instead He goes, "Abraham, go kill your son, your only son. You know the son I promised you. the son you ached for all your life. The son who all my promises are supposed to come through. Yeah, that son. Go off & kill him for me." And yeah, what God tells is brutal 'cause it doesn't tell you the end. Though really knowing the end wouldn't make it better. If God explained exactly what the trial was for, I'd probably go, "Uhm, great. Can we just say I've learned that lesson & skip the whole process?".... ah, yes, but where would be the art in that, eh?

Combined into these thoughts came thoughts from the 'Green Lantern: Rebirth" trade paperback. This one has caught my imagination as it contrasts fear & will. The thoughts tonight focused on the premise that the Green Lantern's rings project constructs made from the will of their wearers & that somehow the GL's are forcing their wills through the rings & each time they do this, it hurts. This got me wondering if everything good in life comes with pain. Does every act of will come with pain? Does every moment of love come with pain? Maybe everything good involves pain? & then I thought, hrm, well, so likely does everything 'bad' come with pain... and then I thought that maybe everything in life involves 'pain'. That nothing we do can escape suffering.... but then thought that maybe pain is the wrong word, maybe the word is 'cost'.... nothing comes free. Everything at a price. Someone's price anyhow... I don't like using 'cost' either. Too many snooty religious folks toss it around & ask us if we're willing to 'pay the cost' required to live the 'Christian life'... and they point to whatever their going through as this great cost & seem to minimize whatever you're facing. Maybe they're right. But I tend to think that there is maybe something wrong when you brag about how much you paid for something. Normally we cheer when we get a good deal on something. Where we get something great for little to no cost. Instead these people are bragging that they paid a whole bunch for not that much. This seems wrong & a tad vain, which sort of makes me suspect. Usually paying a cost wipes out our vanity.... and in light of the One who paid the ultimate cost, we should all recognize we're just riding his coattails & sponging off His riches....

... so this was the thoughts betwen my house & the community house.... weights from the day at work, wrestling with a God who I long for & who terrifies me, feeling like the world is a very desperate place full of risk that I'm not so sure I'm up to the challenge of & hoping for some emerald beam to let me fly some where or cut into the darkness around me or in my own soul to give some sort of release.... that & the history of mambo music which was playing on the radio at the same time - pretty interesting & a nice deviation from the madness....

... but all of the above left me choking on my self... rage, insanity, fear, isolation, hope, longing... I was not so present tonight. Hid mostly on the periphery. At the edge of the table, edges of the room, the edge of conversations, sheltered in dish washing, finding refuge locked away in the bathroom. Not a comfortable night for me. I get into these places. My friends would gladly talk with me about it, would gladly listen & a number asked how I was & stuff... but I push back. It's taken me this long to flush my thoughts on paper & still it barely makes sense in written form. Let alone when I try to talk & none of it comes out right & I ramble on about a million unrelated things to try to explain why i feel what I'm feeling, all the while feeling dumber & dumber & less & less understood (& likely more crazy) with every word spoken... I was tempted to ask for a computer to purge my thoughts so I could be normal (or as close as I get) around people... but yeah, didn't make it to that... and besides, why drag people into the vortex of my craziness... a vortex which'll likely pass once I can spill it out on paper.

...so I basically leaving the whole night. Slunk off towards the end & headed for home. Tried to escape the people so I could be alone & wrestle with the madness more.

I feel again on the verges of losing it. I don't think I'm crazy 'cause I'm always worried that I'm going crazy. Odds are good that if I was crazy I'd maybe think I was right about things & that I knew stuff & that it's all interconnected & I'm somehow in the middle of some great drama. I do think these things or question the possibilty of them, but always conclude that I'm just making this stuff up, so this is how I figure I haven't lost it.

It's so funny 'cause Saturday night I was talking with Andy & telling him how contented I felt. About how happy I am with my life & my own company & how I'm not all wrestling with stuff or trying to find/do/accomplish anything. I felt sort of guilty for saying it. Felt like I wasn't doing much as a Christian if I wasn't in some kind of turmoil or flagellating myself about something... but I didn't feel that guilty 'cause I was enjoying myself.

It's amazing then how in a day it shifts & I've been entrenched again in the feelings of insanity. Most of which I'm blaming on God. I could try to blame this on Andrea 'cause she picked the bible verses & prayer/writing exercises for the week, but I figure it's not her fault (or at least not directly). Tonight in one of the retreats to the washroom ended up reading the other passage for the day, Romans 14 and yeah. So far this week I've found so many links/similar themes running through the days passages. Romans 14 & Lamentations 3 - if there's similarities, I can't see them. Which sort of throws me. Knowing Andrea, she has either painstakingly selected each of these passages with great care & is using them to tell stories of journey & lead us down a path that likely she's walked at great personal cost. Or she just picked them all at random 'cause they looked like good passages. Her personality is such that she could've done either, or both, all depending upon how the moment strikes her or the spirit leads...

...and so Romans 14 throws me 'cause it doesn't seem to 'fit', though it fit the chaos of my head. Do or don't do. It doesn't matter. All is done to God & so we're free to do whatever. But we're to be careful not to mess up those weaker than us. So what does that mean? Who is weaker? I understand the rationale when you say you shouldn't drag an alcoholic to the bar, to put a recovering addict in the middle of the patterns that stole their lives.... but the church uses this passage as a protection of legalism. Those who set up certain 'rules' of conduct - which may or may not fall in line with the thoughts in the Bible - seem to get offended when people break these rules... and then they plead the 'weaker brother' card. "Please stop, what you're doing is offending me." And Jesus seems to come skipping through this hanging out at parties with prostitutes & hugging lepers...

... the chapter ends saying that we are damned if we doubt as we do stuff. Whatever is not of faith is sin. & being someone who questions everything I feel damned. Damned if you do. Damned in you don't. Lately I'm choosing to 'do' & let the chips fall where they may. Earlier in the passage, Paul chides us to say stop judging other people. We're the servants of Christ & He as master will make us all to stand, to thrive. The end of the chapter says happy is the one who doesn't condemn themselves in what they're choosing to do. I likely spend a chunk (mistyped there & said 'junk' which may be appropriate) of time judging myself & being not so happy.... but yeah....

... let loose a scream on the drive home. Again, something I don't do 'cause of the bands of quietness. I wanted to scream all night but figured that'd interrupt dinner & people would be sure I was crazy at that point.... or to scream while people talked about hockey, but I figured that was just bitterness & I should really learn that sports are more worshipful than I give them credit.... so yeah, the car seemed like an appropriate place. For once the scream came out as more of a roar. Which I try to do & it doesn't work out. Like the rest of my work today, the successful roar came out almost by accident... or maybe just honesty of the moment....

...felt a lot better after that & better after writing this.

Apologies to friends. Not that it maybe really matters. But yeah....

not so much writing exercise: 11 Apr PM

Hrm, well, may not make the prayer/writing exercise prescribed for today. Pretty tired. Need sleep. Have a meeting early tomorrow.

Relfections on the day:

- work went by a lot more slowly today. Again, progress on issues. No solutions. Things you think should take you a bit to do always seem to bring up more issues & problems appear like onions with layer after layer of problem... I guess just keep slogging through it all....

- stopped in at the comic shop between work & Jesus Loves You Society. Again, nice to enjoy geekdom....

- JLYS was good. Not too much for thoughts from there. Did dishes, tried to keep up. Chatted with people. Enjoyed good food...

- caught up on e-mails & stuff at home. Andy came to watch the hockey game with David. Caught the occasional moments of conversation, snacked & thought about how to install some mini-guns on the new helicopter... (for those of you just joining in, these are toys, no need to worry about real weaponry).

- I totally don't get facebook.

- finished up a Green Arrow trade paperback. Interesting to watch his strategies of trying to rebuild a city.

- the tiredness has seeped in & is affecting my mood. The buzz & noise of being around people at JLYS has faded & I'm enjoying the quiet, but feel cut off in the moment... it's just the tiredness talking, but yeah...

nothing profound today. There were thoughts, but they are long forgotten in the hubbub of the day...

Writing exercise: 11 Apr AM (close enough)

Well, it's sort of still morning. Groggy today. The bed was very comfortable & sleep was nice. Hit snooze a lot & delayed my getting ready until the last possible moment. Felt a bit delinquent about that, but it also felt luxurious to delay waking for a bit longer. It's amazing how the warmth & coolness of the covers can caress & cocoon your body & make it so hard to leave the shelter of slumber….

No real memories of dreams. Less prodding on the wake up. More just remembering I had a meeting this morning & trying to calculate how long I could delay & still make the meeting.

Was late going to bed last night 'cause I ended up reorganizing some of the G.I. Joes to fit in the new helicopter & zodiac that I got in the mail. Had to move around some stuff, but everything fit in & it looks good. This brought a good feeling to my geek little heart & so it helped me go to bed contented… the thoughts from the writing last night left me feeling a tad undone & so it was nice to 'relax' with the reorganization… I find the whole organizing & stuff to be creative. It's similar to the sub-creator/creative urges that drove Tolkien to create a whole world, peoples, characters, languages for Middle Earth (though mine is a tad less expansive than that).

I delay sleep for far too long, but I think this is just being a bit like my niece. There is so much to do in the day & since I'm more alert at night, I don't quite want my day to end until it has to… this does make me like a zombie in the morning & I miss out on the early parts of the day, but still it's just what it is…

Read the passages for the day (Ecclesiastes 3, Proverbs 12, James 5) in between meetings this morning. Not sure what is driving Andrea in picking these, but it's cool to see the correlation between passages & the common theme that comes through in reading the passages at the same time. There is a theme woven through these three passages of justice; railing against those who oppress the poor & calling for those who are 'righteous' to stand up in the defence of the oppressed. Will have to reflect more on this later & hanging out this evening at the ministry serving single moms may throw a bit more light on this theme, too… (though doing dishes maybe doesn't seem like that much of a defence of the oppressed). But yeah, more to come on these passages tonight.

Writing exercise: 10 Apr PM

Maybe I don't try to reflect on my days 'cause then it takes me too long to write stuff down. Feel like there's a lot & I'll try to summarize. Maybe the thinking about reflecting at the end of the day makes one more conscious of the moments.

- Work flew by today & felt rather unproductive. I get paid to solve problems basically & it seems like solving problems involves a whole lot of discussion & running around trying to find data to get closer to finding solutions. Today I was trying to work about 3-4 different problem areas & wasn't keeping them always straight & basically made incremental progress on all, but not enough to really solve anything. Not a big fan of days like this, but at least it went by mercifully quickly.

- went for lunch with a friend today which was lovely. Enjoyed the food & the conversation. Circumstances & conversation reminded me of other friends who I miss & so it was kind of a bitter-sweet lunch. Good times mixed with longing. Thought about the wine of memory on the way home tonight. With the people you really love, no matter how sweet the memories are, they're never enough. You long for the continual now with them.... and so even the best & sweetest memories have their bitter taste 'cause they remind you that you're not with that person at the moment... this is one of the reasons heaven appeals to me.... the endless now surrounded by those you love where 'goodbye' is forgotten...

- was contemplating if I organize some kind of weekly prayer organization thing like what I'm in the middle of here. Was contemplating exile & our cosmic loneliness.. of how all of us are continually home & yet not-home....

- ended up thinking about Jessica Simpson far more than I'd have expected (guess I saw her in a trailer for another movie before watching Crank last night - so it's not just the John Mayer connection). The comments from the last writing got me thinking & I was figuring that if I had a beautiful woman throw herself at me, & assuming I wasn't interested in anyone else, which is where I'm at at present, then I'd likely be prone to at least spending some time with the woman... would likely feel pulled to more than that. Got me thinking that if it was just dating or 'just' sex, i.e. some temporary relationship, I could probably be with anyone... or at least I think I could... maybe that's just telling myself stories... but it's a totally different thing when you think about being with someone forever. With that you look for something different, you look for a someone, not just a warm body or a set of curves... you look for heart, for smiles, for the quirks that somehow fit you... & hope that you find someone who can grow with you through the years....

...was thinking about the idea of 'just' a body & how perhaps I place far too little value on the physical. I'm all about the soul as in the mind, will & emotions of someone - their personality, the collection of characteristics that make them who they are. This, to me, seems to be the vast, incredible 'universe next door' that I love to explore as I get to know people. It's this aspect of people that fascinate me... but yet we are beings made as a unity - body, soul & spirit - and to focus on only 1 aspect of our being is to sort of deny or cripple the rest. I perhaps am not as happy with my body 'cause it limits me in space & time. It is my anchor in finiteness & fragility. Without it, I have no carrier for soul & spirit & they both dissolve into the ether (in theory to be reunited with God, but one can't 'prove' such a thing until after you've taken that journey (& few come back to document that trip)...

but yet, as Genesis says, God sculpted our body from dust of the ground, or formed it around a rib... David says in Psalms 139 that we were 'knit' together in our mother's wombs... and so God appears to have taken as much care with our bodies as He does in shaping soul & spirit.... and so maybe thinking about 'just' a body is to insult God's creation & his artistry...

..there have been the very few times of where I've been close enough to someone that i can 'explore' the physical a bit more... I look forward to the day of being able to explore every inch of my wife & to try to understand the majesty & miracle of her creation, the beauty & fragility of how she is formed....

.... and so yeah, not sure how Jessica fits into all of that other than being the springboard to the thoughts... David's had me watch one or two episodes of her newlyweds show & she just seems really clueless & self-absorbed... I have a hard time dealing with these characteristics.... Maybe she's secretly brilliant & masterminding the media circus, but yeah, hard to say... I just value people of 'substance' - not that i know what that means... just that there is something real, something heartfelt in their expression of who they are....

- my friend Leah came over for supper tonight. Cooked a roast - which is so easy to do & such a great reward of really, really good food... it feels nice to eat at home & to enjoy my own cooking... we had a good chat, though I felt like I did most of the talking - which is odd for me, though it happens around Leah. We caught up & I showed her pictures of niece & nephew & she listened to kid stories & then I showed her my G.I. Joe's that I was painting & the package of stuff I got in the mail & explained how my head writes little stories for the characters/figures that are bought/made & then showed her some of the custom websites & Marauder, Inc. (http://www.marauderinc.com ). It was totally geek central & I felt sort of bad about it - though she seemed to be interested (or at least was a good liar about it). It felt kind of good to be able to tell stories & to have someone listen & be interested. It's nice just to be heard & it's nice to have someone not point out that your hobby seems somewhat juvenile & silly... It's nice to be able to enjoy something & just have someone listen... maybe it's the kid in us yelling, "look at me! look at me!"....

- I remember being semi-not so happy for chunks of the day... but feeling pretty good now. Tired.

- Psalms 25: again the idea of putting hope/trust in God & the prayer that He will not allow us to be put to shame... Perhaps our credibility is always at risk when we trust... we could look the fool at any time if God appears absent... This is hard on us 'cause God's a tad unpredictable... maybe that's why David prays these things...

...David asks for his enemies to be put to shame & not allowed to triumph over him... I echo this prayer... though also sort of wish that my enemies seemed more tangible... evil wears so many masks. Half the time it looks like me in my apathy... but some days it seems easier to think about some physical enemy out there as opposed to the enemies of the spiritual, of social structures, of our own dark hearts... it's maybe hardest to pray these prayers when you're praying against the seeming enemy within... though maybe that's where we most need to ask God for victory....

So much of the middle of this psalm is about pathways & about God teaching us how to walk. Again there is the mention of 'the truth' that keeps us & guides us & becomes the path...we ask God to remember us & to remember His goodness... we ask Him to remember not our evil... wow, reading this passage again... it's overwhelming... my mood shifts again. I remember now about how coming back from lunch I was listening to CKUA & was feeling kind of what I feel now. The music just evoked this response to beauty & my gut got all tight & I felt short of breath (figuratively) & heart beat faster & it's this sense of being overwhelmed... that somehow reality has dropped away to reveal this expanse of awe - this great limitless expanse of 'wow' . Reading the latter part of this Psalm brings this sensation back.... there is such a desperation here. I love the Psalm 'cause it's not about polished theology or about the too safe, complacent life I live in North America... The Psalm is very primal, very heartfelt, very real. It's someone praying to God to fight for him, to rescue him from his enemies & from his own evil. It's the very core stuff of religion - a very finite human making requests to an infinite deity & asking for help, for guidance, for rescue. There is such a desperation in the prayers here. You feel the sense of panic or at least the urgency in David's voice as he prays... you feel like that if God doesn't come through, David's in trouble... and so hence the 'let me not be put to shame' is a very urgent cry....

...and this is perhaps so much the heart of faith, this risk. It's a risk I so often don't take. I live with 'plan b' & often try to figure out what my plan is if God doesn't 'come through'.... maybe that's 'responsible' to always have a plan, but maybe again it's just not 'faith'... or maybe I'm not living in the places with enough risk that I have that level of urgency... or maybe it's that my quiet prayers, the hidden ones, the deep & groaning ones are that desperate, are that needy, & I just am waiting in the middle of the Psalm for the answer to the prayers.....

Hebrews 12: I love this passage & it's such a great summary to Hebrews. All of the book of Hebrews is speaking how Jesus is a fulfillment of & improvement upon the 'old covenant' or the covenant of 'law' that was given at Sinai (where the 10 commandments were received). Hebrews speaks over & over of how Jesus's new covenant, the new promise made through the sacrifice of His own blood, is so much better than the covenant of law & it sets us free from being people who tremble in fear at God & changes us to people who find home, find family with Him. We are no longer exiled, but welcomed. Again at the end of the passage there is that desperation. The promise that there is a shaking coming that will wipe out everything that can be shaken & leave us with only that which can't be shaken (which is the only stuff we really truly have anyway - & the only stuff that matters). I've lived in this a bit & will live in the shaking more & it's painful & beautiful at the same time....

Hebrews 12 ends with a quotation from Deuteronomy 4:24 about God being a jealous God & Mike Bickle from Kansas City points out that this whole idea of God being a 'consuming fire' is just that He's so in love with us that He'll burn away everything that stands between us & His love... & ultimately in this the imagery changes from an angry God who wants to smite us to a God of great passion who is enflamed with love & there is nothing that will keep us from the tenderness of His embrace....

And so God, to close the written portion of the day.. I...I... well, I'm left with the groaning. I'm left with trying to speak words that are unspeakable... I stand at the edge of the brink overlooking the expanse of your majesty & beauty & overwhelming love & I'm undone. I'm terrified to jump in, but aching to be consumed by you... I feel sort of lost. I'm not very good at this christianity thing... I know longing & I know fear. I am learning love. maybe how to give, maybe how to receive... I need to receive from you, I need you to love me, to notice me, to hear me, to take pleasure in me & to explore every facet of me, body, soul & spirit, even though you know every part so well...

...I want you... and yet fear you.... please help me with that.... help me to trust & to stay on the path instead of getting scared & trying to climb up your shoulders... can our hearts really hold the expanse of you without bursting? God, why is there such an ache? why is there so much longing &, as it seems, so little finding? You say you will be found when we look for you? (though as you've told me, you are also found by those who don't look for you)... am I just missing the obvious or over thinking it all?

More to say, but it feels like chaos & desperation & it's all garbled. Thank you for beauty, for feeling, for bodies that move & hearts that rush & tongues that taste & savour good food & good wine. Thank you for friendship, for laughter, for creativity, for love, for hope & joy & all the good gifts you richly supply.

Writing exercise: 11 Apr AM

morning observations woven around discussing bugs at the bug review:

- can't remember dreams. Woke up groggy. Had some psuedo half awake dreams of being in some schoolroom with other people & wanting to stay in the dream/sleep & had some teacher type figure (maybe me) prodding me to keep going & wake up & not hit snooze so often & actually try to make it in for this bug review meeting.

- Apathy was running high this morning. Had 'Vicarious' playing away in the internal stereo. Got all shaved & showered & dressed. Got a roast in the oven for tonight. Roads weren't as bad as I thought. God help us if this rain freezes on the roads... (may be an interesting commute for lunch today).

- Radio on the drive in. Listening to the normally very good morning show on CKUA. No deep thoughts. Had some song with Herbie Hancock & John Mayer. Tempted to buy a ticket for his concert. Mostly so I can catch Kathleen Edwards who is supposed to be opening for him. I hear John Mayer is fantastic, but I think he's the guy who is hanging with/chasing Jessica Simpson. She impresses me as being like the chick in the movie last night. Pretty, but not too bright. Maybe I'm just hard on people. I respect people with enough smarts to protect themselves... maybe the blond not so brainy chicks are still great people with sweet hearts & who just have fun & laugh & enjoy life... Maybe my love of thinking, contemplating, exploring humanity & emotion & philosophy & stuff just makes me no fun & chokes my enjoying things... so maybe it's all perspective... Maybe I could learn something deep & profound from Jessica Simpson (uhm, or not).

- Intrigued by Patti Griffin's music. Heard a song about some old dude riding a bus to who knows where that I like & realize it's one of her tunes. Seems to be some metaphor for life that there is a ride to be experienced/enjoyed, but direction/destination is not always so clear.

- bugs suck. I've got limited time & no tools to really investigate these, but can't push them back to the developers as 'broken' unless I basically completely diagnose the issue for them... bleh.

- Psalms 25 & Heb 12. Will have to look at these more tonight. Psalms 25 felt 'new'. I'd forgotten what's in it, if I ever knew. Heb 12 is sort of been ingrained in me.... The 'surrounded by the great cloud of witnesses', then running the race looking to Jesus. Then the section on chastening. Forgot about the strengthening the feeble part, but remember Esau & his tears & the contrast between Sinai & Zion, old covenant vs. new & then the quote from Haggai about God shaking heaven & earth.... good passage, but I likely (almost) take it for granted out of familiarity...

Interesting to contrast this with Psalms 25. David repenting for his sin. Hebrews 12 opening with Jesus enduring the contradiction of sinners... It's maybe good to realize that we are both those who are saved, those who Jesus died for, and also the murderers of Jesus, our sin being what nailed him to the tree.... but liked Psalm 25... good, real prayers - asking God for help & deliverance...

more to come later in the day.

Writing excercise: Apr 10 reflections.

Bah. I should be in bed. It's the early morning Bug review meeting tomorrow & I should probably try to be up for that & should maybe try to beat the traffic 'cause the roads will likely be crap tomorrow after the rain we're getting tonight turns to ice (though maybe I should just stay home & avoid the carnage)....

Anyhow, I'm attempting to write stuff to reflect on the day. The urban monastery folks (http://www.urbanmonastery.ca/) are trying to provide a more structured/consistent pattern of morning & evening prayer that the community joins in on. Since I've now figured out that I don't have to show up at the community house at 6AM & 9PM every day to participate, I figure I should maybe join in.... so far I'm already behind & not sure how I'm going to fit in stuff this week, but we'll give it a whirl & try.

Reflections on today:

- goal was to spend the majority of the day at home in quiet, paint G.I. Joes, watch some stuff, cook some, meet with Marie at 2, cook some more & slack in the evening & hopefully clean some in preparation for the party this weekend.

- morning started as planned. Bit of painting, then watched the final episode of 'Justice League Unlimited: Season 2'. This rattled me. The series ends with the forces of Apokolips invading earth & hero & villian alike have to band together to defeat them. There is a set of scenes where the heroes assemble, as individuals & groups & they are all teleported one by one to join the battle.... this imagery of heroes assembled, of the gathering of courageous souls to fight one last fight against the overwhleming darkness & evil, left me weeping uncontrollably.... wasn't really sure all of the why's for that, it just happened. More tears came as Superman let loose on Darkseid... where he finally unleashed the full extent of his power instead of holding back for fear of hurting something in the 'world of cardboard'.... and more tears at the return of J'onn J'onzz.... Maybe it's just tiredness. but something there shook me & this affected the mood for the rest of the day.

- after that, more painting. Have been fiddling with heads. Forming heads are a pain in the butt. Have finally maybe started to figure out a technique to do eyes. Realized that mostly you can just draw a black line on the upper rim of the eye & this looks like the dark line of eyelashes & then a black dot in the middle for the iris. Instead of painting eyes last, I'm starting the heads by roughing in the eyes & then painting over anything that looks like a mistake... it is funny how even in this, the figures sometimes take on a life of their own & somehow it just looks 'right' to put a brushstroke or dab of paint in one area or another.....

- I think I got stressed with the figures & time today. Wanted to put a lot of time into the painting today & ended up with various interruptions.... not bad interruptions, but just not what I'd had planned. Unsuccessfully attempted tech support for dad with computer stuff, had lunch with Marie & chatted for a few hours. Had to pick up roomie Dan from the airport which ate a 1 1/2 hour that I wasn't planning on. But I was sort of pre-occupied with how much time I'd get to spent painting... stressing about finding time to relax... maybe there's something wrong in that. Or maybe it's a good shift of craving the creative time & the place of solitude.... I made good progress. Have some of the figures coming together well. Some where the faces look like actual faces. Others that are likely salvageable.... Some figures where the colour schemes & the rough outline of how they'll be painted are coming together nicely. Got a good start on about 5-7 figures & finished coating & assembling 10 other figures, so it felt nice to see some finished product after a long time of fiddling with them.

- ended up with tears & such while in the shower getting ready to leave the house. Was listening to Tool's "10,000 days" & the opening track 'Vicarious' - it's a song about humanities tendancy to observe carnage & destruction from a distance. He proposes the theory that we do this as a power trip, that vicariously we watch the world crumble & burn around us & we remain unscathed in our being outside of the disaster zones... he figures maybe it's some dark god urge that wants to wipe out the planet & to still remain in power & alive.... Again, not sure the source of the tears for that... I like the song. The melody ripples with power & crunch.... maybe I just crave the sense of feeling empowered.

- Marie was busy at the Lazy Loaf when I arrived, so I had time to sit there by myself & observe & reflect as I ate my sandwich that was too tall for my mouth. Kind of felt a bit like I'm going crazy. My head felt like I was thinking through a fog & yet crystal clear... thoughts like molasses & yet instantaneous.... I was preoccupied with the stuff from yesterday, the random tears from today, the call/lure of solitude & creativity.... so maybe that was it... tried to share about the thoughts from yesterday, but that didn't go very far - no answers or clarity at least....

- after the return from the airport made chili & watched 'Crank'.... not the most intelligent movie.... Honestly found it kind of slow in a lot of places... Figured the dude should die from lack of adrenaline 'cause I was bored & assumed he'd be too... I shake my head at the chick in the movie... it sort of saddens me to think that there are women who are maybe like that & who seem to be pretty dang clueless.... pretty yes, but just not really thinking so well.... The ending was odd... All that movie about rush to try to say that we should slow down & smell the roses more often... Though who knows, maybe there's a message for me in that woven through the theme of the day....

- reading passages: I sort of skimmed through the passages for today... they speak hope & taunt me at the same time. I am both encouraged & angered by them... the anger is of course longing & a sense of powerlessness to reach/encounter what is longed for....

- John 17. Out of all that Jesus prays when he prays for us, it seems the most important to Him is that we are one. The Father is in Him, He is in us & we are all one... He wants the world to know that the Father has sent Him & that He has loved us (verse 24). Again, His prayer is not that we'd do a bunch of things or convert a bunch of people (though that may come as part of the package), but His prayer is that we are united with Him & (in theory) with each other - that love reigns & unites....

-Psalms 104: vs. 2& 3 - God clothed with light, heavens like a tent & the beams of his chambers are in the water. The idea of laying beams in water intrigues me.. There is so much of the structure of this planet that I don't understand. How is the land held up? What exactly is in that ocean down there? God looks wild, uncontrolled, unpredictable in this passage. He looks sovereign, ruling over all & in control of everything... There is a majesty in this passage & a beauty of God's intimate involvement with the planet & His creation....

John 17:17 asks to sancitfy us through His word & says that His word is truth... I've been having the potential of conflict with my family over me drinking wine. Part of me twinged with this passage & the 'vino veritas' - in wine, truth - which was much the reason for me getting started into really trying to learn to enjoy wine. The twinge was why seek for truth elsewhere when truth is found in 'the word'... I've been reading a wine tasting book recently & it's been explaining that wine does not lie because the condition of the grapes & the processing will definitely be found in the taste of the wine... and so I'm understanding the 'truth' that wine brings... and it's nice to see here in Psalms 104:15 this idea that God brings wine as a gift to make the heart of men (& women) glad... He doesn't comment on the morality of alcohol or on drunkeness, etc. It's just a statement that God provides all of our needs, all the things that we seek & want....

... I find the comments on darkness & leviathan interesting. The whole passage is like taking a 'day in the life of God' & watching Him 'get up' in the morning to go out for 'chores' & to tend the earth. He lights the sun, rides on the clouds, sets the foundations of the earth & keeps the waters in place. He then tends to the animals & people, providing them water & food & sustenance... and part of His day, part of those 'chores' of God is to 'make darkness' - to provide time for all the beasties to roam & devour prey, to let leviathan (a great sea-serpent & often metaphor for satan) 'play'... God's discourse in Job ends with God giving Job a lesson in the anatomy of leviathan... and Mike Mason, in his "The Gospel According to Job" book seems to think that this is God showing His response to the problems of pain & suffering in the world. God doesn't answer the questions of why there is pain or why He allows evil to exist & have reign & to consume & destroy & chain & kill.... Instead all He does with Job it to pick leviathan up, turn him over & spin him round & open his jaws & basically it's like God taking this fearsome dragon & like some great child playing with it like it's some plastic dinosaur... God's lesson to us about suffering & evil is to show us that He is greater than these things & more powerful than even the most terrifying of villains in our stories....

...verses 28-30 & really the end of the Psalm.... Shows everything's reliance on God. If He breathes into us, we live. If He takes away the breath we crumble to dust... but at any time He can breathe again & resurrect us... but yet in all of this, He remains unchanged, eternal.... and so this goes back to yesterday where I'm waiting on His breath, the spirit, to move.... all He has to do is speak one word & it's done.... but yet He waits.... I have come to realize that sometimes He just outlasts us... His eternal constant-ness just waits for us to give up, to stop our fighting & fall into His arms.... some of us take longer to stop pounding his chest than others....

- John 15 - again, the connection... We abide in Him. He is source, we are just conduit...

-Jeremiah 33: Ah, yes, this passage. It starts out with the tantalizing, "Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not." This & the passages about healing & restoration both cause my heart to soar & crushes it to pieces... These are the promises of God, the reality we are supposed to live in, but yet it seems so far off... the scriptures seem to tease, like in Song of Songs 5, he comes to the door & calls & I rush to the door, hands dripping myrrh (the fragrance of suffering & of a crushed spirit) & yet find Him gone... lost in the night, leaving me lovesick & desperate... I ask for great & mighty things & the revelation seems to give only the same stuff - the same promises of a faithful & good God that does above & beyond all I can ask or think. A God who keeps covenants for as long as sun & moon endure... and I believe this stuff. I trust all of this, but I want to see it's reality....

...I feel a kinship with Jeremiah. He was the weeping prophet. He was the dude whose heart broke for his people. He cared probably the most for the people He prophesied to out of any of the prophets. And he was given at times the hardest messages to deliver to them... and at the end of the day, after all that care & compassion & faithfulness, I'm not sure that Jeremiah saw a single 'convert' (i.e. someone who actually did what God was speaking).... and then there's Jonah who was hoping that God would smite the people he was sent to & the whole city repents....

...but yet Jeremiah was given visions like here in chapter 33. Imagery of a restored Israel. A people healed & set free... & I wonder how he responded to these visions... How did He react? Did it leave him weeping with joy at the beauty of what God was going to do? Or was he stuck looking at the 'now' & seeing how far things were from the coming redemption?

OK, that's more than my quota of writing/thinking for the day. Time for bed.

Resurrection Morn

Today in church, in the middle of resurrection morn, I believed for a moment. It was some where in the singing of songs that resonated, somewhere after the words of liturgy which spoke stories of the One who had ransomed us all with His death, somewhere in the middle of trying to sing my heart out, to push the full force of air from lungs past lips to shout/sing, to trumpet this good news; somewhere in that moment I believed fully that Christ has indeed risen. Idea, concept story sublimated in that moment & became reality. Spirit revealed, the truth of heaven merged with human experience & confession & on this rock Jesus forms His church....

...it was breathtaking. I was lost for words & wept & wept at the beauty of the risen one. I wept like Magdalene, seeing the Jesus she loved alive after she'd thought she'd lost him for ever....In the moment I felt like Abraham looking up at the stars, somehow suddenly it all made sense. Suddenly the idea that a man in his 90's could father a son connected with him. The words God has been speaking to him for the last 15-20 years suddenly seemed real & he believed & it was counted to him for righteousness... and it felt like that today - that the reality of the risen Christ that I'd heard about, read about, thought about in theory suddenly felt so real, so true, so complete.....

...and in the middle of this place, I started to pray for those around me, to let my heart stretch out to feel the needs of the people I know & love... & so I prayed for healing, for hope, for strength, for love.... prayed for resurrection miracles, for Him to make all things new - to turn ashes to beauty & mourning to dancing....

...there was a momentary paralysis in this. I was up at the front, alone, in quiet of heart, the chords sounding from the speakers washing over me & resonating through me. I was in temple, in that quiet place, coming boldly before the throne, just me & the divine, talking about Him unleashing healing, hope, joy, love to friends, to children he loves.... and I prayed believing in the prayers, but afraid to turn around to see if the results were happening/not happening....waiting, hoping for shouts of joy, of healing revealed, to come from somewhere behind me as one of the prayers took hold & the Risen Christ unleashed a miracle to change bad to good, darkness to light....

... but turn around I did... & I wandered back to join the circle of friends praying for one of the friends who has been suffering under sickness for far too long.

& again, I prayed, speaking out the release of healing with a boldness, a defiance... less request, more command, hoping that this boldness would echo faith, would somehow show belief, that I trusted God could do what he says he can do..... and..... well... nothing.... or at least from what my eyes/heart could see at the time.

This brought a whole nother kind of tears & a different kind of thoughts.....

What good is it to be indwelt by the risen Christ & to not have His resurrection power to flow out from me? I have been told that I am, in some senses, the incarnation - that the Word indwells me & once again has become flesh..... that Jesus/Spirit/Father walks the earth wearing a Kirk suit. His voice echoes in mine, His heart loves through me. This is what I believe. & so, as I have been told, I begin to expect that as I speak, that the words come with His authority, that the voice that spoke creation into existence speaks through me. That the voice that shook the earth & calmed the waves & sea somehow speaks through my stammering tongue. His hands which brought healing to many are felt in my touch. He lives in me & flows through me.....

...but yeah, it seems like there is a disconnect. It feels like there is something waiting, something that is 'not yet' that holds the flow, the power back. When I pray for others, when I place my hands on them as a sign that I walk with them in their struggles, I expect to be a conduit, a lightning rod, to let God's power flow through me & be unleashed to others - not that he can't unleash directly to them, it's just that He somehow lets/chooses His sons & daughters to partner with him in the process... but ultimately we are nothing in the process but channels - pathways - pipes open at both ends, first to receive & then to let His grace pour out through us....

and so as a conduit, I am nothing. If I was to fill myself with my own importance, it would stifle the flow.... I would try to turn His power into my own & use it to lay claim to some sort of fame or vainglory - but instead, I am just empty. All I care about is seeing friends healed... for this friend, I have prayers for dancing feet, for a soul unchained & no longer tied down & earthbound, but free to praise with abandon & without limitation......

....in the past people have given me so many theological explanations for the 'blockage' for the 'not yet'. There are dozens of elaborate explanations that get God off the hook for why He doesn't appear to do big flashy miracles today. Mostly I think these explanations are bogus. I could believe the ones that say that if I'm not pure enough or something then He won't move through me.... but if that's the case, the world is without hope 'cause I know maybe 5 people that may be pure enough of heart that they might qualify & even then I think that's just 'cause I can't see the fullness of who they are. No, the Jesus I love speaks always of grace and the scriptures are full of screwed up men & women that God moves through to bring redemption & to tell His story.....

....and so there is no satisfying explanation. There is only the heartache of praying your heart out for people you love, believing that God hears & answers & then watching them hobble out of church, still not whole....

... and so I ended my time at church today in tears. Today feels like I'm tugging on this great rope, trying to drag the new Jerusalem into our space & time... and the physics is getting in the way, the stuff of heaven seems to be blocked by the things of earth, the reality of heaven seems to get stuck on the edge of the atmosphere & I'm not able to pull hard enough to somehow puncture that bubble, to let Heaven's reality seep into our own.....

.... and yes, i know that miracles aren't always as you expect them. There were probably great miracles & great healing today. Maybe the miracle was seeing the worshipper friend surrounded by the sisterhood & friends who cared, all of us groaning & weeping & petitioning heaven for her release. Maybe this show of love reminds her of her worth & value to us & to God.... maybe there is healing that she doesn't feel alone (if she ever did). Maybe there were miracles today of friendship. Of lonely souls finding people to listen to them. Of being able to speak hope & worth into a friend who feels they've wandered astray. Maybe I had my own miracles of not retreating to wrestle alone, but instead choosing to join people for lunch - where none of my questions were voiced or discussed..... and maybe there was a miracle of grace in me not being all grumpy with the conversation & raging like some angry prophet, but instead listening to people talk about economics & the housing market. (Part of my grumpiness was likely mitigated sitting next to a friend who loves this stuff & who is good at it... it makes me happy to see her joy in this & I hope she makes a gazillion dollars 'cause she'll probably give most of it away to help the poor)...

...but walking back from lunch I passed a prostitute on the other side of the road. I stumbled along, avoiding her gaze, not wanting to further degrade my mood by having to deal with the awkward questions as she walks the lonely, heartbreaking back & forth walk, waiting for the next customer to come, looking to survive, looking for maybe more.... but this too was a reminder of the blackness.... a soul in chains as a prize of the enemy reminding me that heaven seems to not rule this place .....

...yet.....

...and this is where I sit... in the 'not yet'.... there's a really bad episode of the old G.I. Joe cartoon where Cobra unwittingly releases this badly drawn biological-germ-cloud-thingie that somehow is impervious to bombs & lasers & it eats up all the tanks & jeeps & it basically devouring everything in it's path like any other bad B-movie creature. The brilliant solution proposed by the brave G.I. Joe team is to poison it with the trace amounts of cyanide found inside apple seeds and so the team loads up all their trucks & guns with apples to blast into the germ cloud (see, told you it was badly written)

Anyhow, towards the end of the show there is a scene where one of the Joe's refuses to leave the line & keeps pitching apple after apple at the beast. When asked what he's doing & why he's not running, he says something to the effect that one of those apples is going to give the final dosage to stop this thing & it may be the next one he throws in, or the one after that.....

....and somehow, this badly written bit of schlock sticks with me.... & today it resonates again... today the prayers didn't 'work' (i.e. I didn't see the miracle I was expecting).... but the next prayer may be one that will do it... or the next one after that....

They say that insanity is doing the same thing over again & expecting a different result & so I feel the insanity of my heart, the foolishness of belief... this is the place where we 'kick at the darkness til it bleeds daylight' - of where we know the kingdom of heaven in near, that there is healing, hope, justice, freedom, love, just waiting to be poured out freely & maybe today will be the day we see His truth revealed & the lame will walk, the blind see, the prisoners loosed & love will reign as king....

...and if not today, then maybe the next day....

...or the one after that....