Into the Fray

I have lots of thoughts and i'm lousy at putting them into words.  

Death is the craziest thing.  The one thing that we can't ignore, that turns all of us to ash, that we try to ignore but we can't ignore.

Beautiful things come out of dust, out of nowhere, out of the womb, out of heaven and the world with all its glory and all its terror.

There is something very important and profound about the thing we call love.  No one can quite figure it out but it is powerful.

There is something amazing that happens when people get shaken up.  When their world gets completely destroyed and they have to reconstruct everything they know.  They have to ask what and who it is that they truly love, what they care about, what claws its way inside of their restless, despairing heart and ignites that fire that we always talk about but don't understand.

They have to ask what it means to be alive, what it means to die, and why the world is the way it is.

Love seems to be the one thing above all else that keeps people going, that gives them a reason to live.

I kind of like it when things stop being so pretty and proper and fun and turn nasty, ugly, real, serious, and important.   Part of why i like the music that i do.

Once more into the fray...

Into the last good fight i'll ever know.

To live and die on this day...

To live and die on this day...




So who do you love, and why are you alive?

There is nothing as beautiful as grace, forgiveness, and love

Honest Encouragement

All of these young men dying of old age
To feel alive could cost you everything
It's hard to hold onto your ideals
When you lost your innocence

When the dreams you've caught
Aren't the dreams you've chased
Now your hearts are bleeding
To keep this pace

The kid you were
Hates the man you became
You can't remember what you wanted
You just can't
Feel the same

Remember what you wanted
Remember what you chased

365

365 and nobody knows

What's waiting in heaven or each place below

Blue dusty footsteps with big airy smiles?

Liquid bugs and inflatable wing-balloons?

more hairy poems through orange kazoos?

No such thing as future news

Nothing left but to get in and go, still. again. to go

palms up chips down chest bare

heart with a so desperate and happy prayer

365 more of who knows how

many left I'll have

to lay down lonely, stand up crippled

Hungry for truth, not cheese.

This stuff is important

Steady the treads, ready the heads and make extra soft the beds

For the faltering, wandering, stumbling, wondering, hurting

beautiful feet that you love.

Silent thunderblasts, you know the ones

Stabbed straight through and swept under the lungs

A fragrance of just the right colour (the one without a name) whisper of just the right shade image with just the right..

Caress.

Those three that remain, they're all we got left

And we all know which one is the best

The one we all so often confess

Make it true, root it down deep

When it's not, well we all know the stories

Of slippery slopes that tend to be steep

It's all we got left, so God...please.

Take all the world away. These shiny, wonderful shooting stars

that are literally made of poop.

The trash we never wanted that we can't even keep

even if I tried for each of the

365 and who knows how many

more we'll get

Humbled and uplifted all in the same

Ideas that keep us believing and (in)sane

Like throwing all the doughnuts out the window of the van.

Dying all the time is the only way to live

And i'm way too alive to be able to give

What needs to be built

Enabler, do your stuff

Love your love, cause that's all we got.

Steady... steady.. steady as she goes

365 and nobody knows

Opposite reactions to the same idea

Here's an interesting thought:

An idea that will give a believer great hope and joy will drive another to despair and suicide.

What thought? It could take a lot of different shapes but the basic idea is this:

"I don't belong here."

There are things to hate about the world. We were not made for this world and it constantly attacks us.

Nothing about this world gives my heart any real satisfaction. I am always wanting things that I will probably never get here.

But that's how it's supposed to be. There are many different paths that one could take when they realize that they don't belong here: self-pity, anger, depression, hedonism, etc.

Or you could defy the oppression of the world by telling the world that it's not the authority, that physical earth and the misery it causes is not the be all end all. That there is a light at the end of the tunnel and it is a glorious one.

To someone who has no faith, this world is the only world there is, so when they realize that there is nothing of value here, death begins to look like the only feasible option. The idea of not belonging on earth makes them want out, and they get out by dying.

Believers also get out by dying, but instead of getting out just to stop the pain and disappointment, we go out into something greater, when we leave we go where we DO BELONG. Where our hearts WILL BE SATISFIED. We will go to the place that our hearts are made to long for. That is what gives hope and joy.

Keeping the big picture in mind helps you trudge through the smaller battles, and for faithless hearts, the big picture is actually a very small picture.

So really, it all hinges on that one thing called faith.

Having faith is DIFFICULT. It is a war and you can't be idle about it.

But aren't most good things also difficult?

We need help. Glorify God by asking Him for it.

Tragedy and Victory

These two words have been on my mind quite a bit lately. They are two of the most powerful words there are, in my opinion.

I remember reading the book "All Quiet on the Western Front" in high school. I found probably the most clear example of what I would call tragedy.

There are two soldiers who have been best friends throughout the war (World War I, I think), and they have been through all kinds of terrible situations together. They have narrowly escaped death a number of times, they have been in and out of foreign prisons, and have watched each other's backs through everything. They have seen many of their fellow soldiers killed. I think that soldiers often try to prevent building emotional connections with other people during war, because there is such a high likelihood that those around them will be killed, and it is easier to see someone you don't care about die. Well, in this book, these two did not follow that model. They were close. During a relatively quiet time in the war, one of the two soldiers gets knocked unconscious by what I believe was a grenade blast, but he was still alive and would recover. The other picks him up on his shoulders and, using all the strength in his sore and hungry body, starts running through the woods to get him to safety. One can imagine the extremely intense fear going on here.

While he was running, another grenade went off in the distance, and a small shard of shrapnel flew from it and went through the unconscious soldier's head. It took the running soldier a while to realize what had happened. His friend died silently, by a complete freak accident, a tiny shred of metal flying at random through the woods and hitting him where it was most sure to kill him.

How is one to even process something like this? There is absolutely no apparent purpose to what happened - he just died. The only friend this soldier had was taken away for no reason at all. He made it through so much danger - thousands of bullets, mortars, mines, bombs, that COULD have killed him, but in this one quiet, safe forest, that one little piece of metal was determined to end his life.

Sin is always tragedy. Genesis 3 introduced it into the world, and it is all around us and very often inside of us.

People die, they get betrayed, they hurt you and leave you feeling empty. They do things that show that they are not who you thought they were. Sin is everywhere.

I get depressed sometimes. I feel like almost all there is to life is tragedy. In my easy, comfortable, full-of-ridiculous blessings life, I have seen some tragedies that have taken a serious toll on my heart. I see them everywhere because I am a very sensitive person. I have lost friends and been hurt by people. I have seen potential joys fall into ruin. My desires are sometimes held right in front of my face and then yanked away from me.

People like myself tend to be in tragic places because they are bad at preventing it. I am by nature a reciever, not a giver. A follower, not a leader, a reactor and not an initiator. Something about that means that tragedy is attracted to me. As Proverbs 18:9 says, "One who is slack in his work is brother to one who destroys." I think that relates somehow, though I'm not sure how to explain it. Instead of actively causing tragedy, I will just sit back and let it happen. I'm no better than the destroyer.

It would be easy for me to just be completely bitter. To let my soul shrivel up and become hard, crusty, angry, calloused, cold. That's WHAT THE WORLD WILL DO TO YOU. It will wear you down until you can't keep going. It will suck your optimism away and give you nothing in return.

But, there is a name and a word that are greater.

Jesus, and Victory.

What else do we have? Without Him there is no such thing as victory. There is only tragedy, death, pain, bitterness.

But time and time again I find that if I am to have any hope in this life, I have to believe that there is a true and real victory that is more powerful than any of the deepest, most twisted tragedy.

It doesn't matter how abused you have been, how many times you have been lied to or stabbed in the back, how many loves have been torn apart,

Really there is no other hope than to believe in the victory that Jesus has won, has bought, and extends to us.

I have found that there are no other words of life other than the ones from His mouth.

No one else can offer what He does.

Jesus offers a return to the innocence and purity that was in Adam before the fall. What is more tragic than the loss of innocence? Nothing is more beautiful than innocence - than purity of heart. The ultimate essence of beauty is found in something that is unstained by the world, as James 1:27 says. The world stains us. Jesus washes us. He makes beautiful things out of wretched things.

The very idea of beauty died so long ago, but sometimes I catch a glimpse of You. At the call of Your name, at the touch of another's hand. I see this place as Adam once saw Eden.

I don't think anyone is quite who they want to be. I certainly know that I'm not. I fail so many people in so many ways on a daily basis. My heart is constantly wandering and is full of lies.

But again, I have to believe that there is something that can restore me. And, as a result of God's unsurpassed love, there IS. No matter how twisted I am, I am not beyond restoration.

VICTORY WILL ALWAYS TRIUMPH OVER TRAGEDY.

It's not easy to believe, but I have to believe that. That is my hope. That is everyone's hope.

Fix your eyes on the One who authored a perfect world, who is Himself perfect, and who walked in flesh on Earth in order to give us the only victory that gives us the ability to overcome the cursed sicknesses of this world. Cling to that hope, because it's all we have. It's all that keeps us from a steep fall into depression and bitterness.

This is what I think victory sounds like

Praise the only true King.

This isn't the way things were meant to be...

Please give me the strength to do something about it