routine

Everyday the boy wakes up, breathes, eats, breathes and lays his head back to sleep. Scattered between these five actions are other actions that differ from day to day, but when taken up as a whole are all the same group of actions on random repeat.

He realizes and a thirst for novelty awakens. "Truth is novel," he says. He yearns for the real, but searches for it on the abstract edges where searching is most exhilirating. With the searching begins rampant dreams. Some said outloud because sometimes when things are loud/big enough, we believe in it. Others said outloud as some form of a purging or cleansing process always followed by a long sigh, thick with doubt.

Dreaming and searching then become a part of the melting pot of actions that make life so routine for the young boy.

As a result, searching for truth ceases -- but it happens without the boy's knowing. Unaware, he keeps searching, but little does he know that he is only searching for novelty...and not truth.

Something new. Something beyond normal. Something different. I feel it all escapes us far too much.
At the same time, I think all of us wants routine, just not the routine we have now--it's either the wrong things or the wrong order.


note on the slight 'nonsensicalness' of this entry: Sometimes you write, and your writing transcends your thoughts and when you re-read it, it's not that it doesn't make sense...it's just that you don't fully understand it yet.

such little understanding of grace.

at times i feel far from being a 'sinner free'.

I feel like a sinner locked up, trapped up, and without much hope. That makes me want to lie face down away from God and whisper for his forgiveness -- trembling in doubt and a pitiful feeling as I tell myself, "I fully understand if you don't accept me now".

These feelings don't come from grave, 'serious' sins. But 'small', 'little' ones that bring me back to the dark corners within me. There is no measurable scale on sin, but I believe there are certainly some things that bring us faster to our shadows than others.

"Grace," I yell. "Grace," I scream. I raise my voice louder to extract from the volume some kind of conviction and belief, but layered under the loud yelling is just a hollow hope that echoes a fading desire for something to be real.

Rather... today, I feel and yearn for only your mercy. Father, I understand your wrath and reluctance if ever it exists within your heart.

"Mercy..." I whisper it softly through my trembling lips.

I do not understand Your grace, but praise be to You for it.

sah-seum

As the deer panteth for the water so my soul longeth after You.
You alone are my heart's desire and I long to worship You.

power of the cross

Lately, I have found myself gazing more at the cross. And I find no beauty in it.

Gruesome. Ugly. Gross. Weak.

What worth was placed in me that death on two intersecting pieces of dead wood was deemed 'perfect love'?

Beautiful Lord. Your light shines bright and makes corners that were once dimly lit pitch black. There is no grey area within me that have hints of hope or love. I am a vanishing mess of black.

Thanks be to God for promise of new hope -- a wholly new creation. No fixing, no glue, no mess; all is discarded and I am made new -- like the virgin Mary, new life has been borne within me without cause.

Praise be to God.

worship

Singing songs and basking in your worship reminds me of what it feels like to do what I was created for. It strangely brings me comfortably to foundations I do not know much of -- like finding absolute comfort in a stranger's bed. This is where I belong. This is where I was meant to roll around in joy all along.

In 2010, may I approach you ever boldly in prayer with an unrelenting faith in it. May I sing worship to you in awesome wonder and love.

hush

I didn't want to say because I didn't want one to think that it would change me. It does not. I am still who I am, and I have neither grown more humble nor proud. Talking about it only makes me uncomfortable because I see how one perceives me changes -- both for good and bad. Public perception and status sucks. I don't want more or less of your respect because of what happened. So hush I will be because I have this thing inside of me that wants to prove to all that it does not change me. Only Christ does.

I feel as if lately I have been getting disappointed in so many things. I realized disappointment for me often happens when I feel like I am in a place of 'right'... so to speak. A sense of righteousness and entitlement almost goes hand in hand with my disappointments. So, when I do feel disappointed, I often have to remind myself to step back, think, understand, and love. Yet, in a way unknown to me, I feel like I've lost this ability or more so, lost the drive to will this refining process in me. Why? I don't know. This whole thing makes me feel like a more bitter person.

Is it any wonder that without you, I feel darker? Without you more empty, yet less desperate? Starving, but a loss of hunger? Without you, the instinct to live disappears. Father, you know me and the depths of my hearts.  Search me and when you find me, please nourish me. Love me tender for I am still tattered and torn.

I am thankful cause I still have this urge for your intimate touch -- at least, I didn't lose that. Thank you...

resentment

i will be the first to admit that i have my own insecurities. I think everyone does.

However, people who are wholly insecure annoy the crud out of me. People who just constantly want attention annoy me too. People who are dumb and incapable also annoy me. People who are socially awkward, although usually bearable and funny, becomes really annoying when in mix with any of the three aforementioned characteristics.

Somehow, my officemate is all four.

I resent it. GAH!

"What do I know of holy?"

this song is great.

i love the lyrics:
 "I think I've made you too small, I never feared you at all. If you touched my face, would I know you; looked into my eyes, could I behold you? What do I know of you who spoke me into motion? Where have I even stood but the soil along your ocean. Are you fire or are you fury? Are you sacred, are you beautiful?

And the girl who sings it, sings with such a pleading and dismayed, yet curious and hopeful voice. It's a song that comes to grips with realizing the distance from God, but also realizing there IS a greater intimacy that she has yet to come close with but desperately longs for.

Jesus, I love you and I want you, but what do I know of holy? What do I know of you?

Trick

I pulled off the greatest heist since Ocean's 11.

A trick so well done, it is surreal.

switchfoot

switchfoot - hello hurricane.

i am in love again. i love switchfoot... 3 out of their last 4 albums (exception being 'oh! gravity' which I thought was mediocre) have been absolute rock star quality

Everyone please listen to Switchfoot - Free. Something about its melody really makes me feel like i am being freed...

I love this line:

There's a hole in the neighborhood where shadows fall
There's a hole in my heart but my hope is not in me at all
I had a dream that my chains were broken , broken, broken open

dark

The most pessimistic, negative, and darkest thing I have heard in my entire life is the quote, "You started dying the moment you were born." Or something along those lines...

Man...that is dark.

random

Everyday is a struggle to love.

I am done with my apps. Or at least a good chunk of them, and I am so relieved.

I think everyone needs to take time to look outside of themselves -- not just some time, a LOT of time.

The best way to avoid ourselves is to focus on others (this is not a good thing) -- whether it be negatively (trash talk, anger, hate) or positive (effusive praise, prayer requests, idolatry).

Accepting ourselves is essentially the same thing as asking ourselves to realize that we suck.

It's easy to ask everyone to make hard decisions when you put yourself in a position where your decision is easy.

No, it's not the truth. It's what you would like for to be the truth - your truth, your version, your angle, your way.

Don't judge too quickly. Don't really judge at all. But don't be a foolish smiley nice guy and call everyone happy people. Discern wisely at all times.

Yes, discerning people is different from judging. How? I think I know, but I am not clear enough to put it in words. Educate me if you are so clear.

I think we all play too much hide-and-seek. What do I mean? I mean that we hide ourselves and look at others too much.

The opposite doesn't exactly work either, but I do think it's better: Seek ourselves and hide others.

I think it's difficult to love people when you can't accept yourself.

Honesty is tougher, because honesty is less and less valued. The value of honesty has to be realized first before honesty takes its bold course.

without love

I need to be more gentle. Slower, warmer, and less edgy around the corners. Sometimes, I look at myself and find myself highly abrasive. I think it's indicative of my insecurities of seeming weak and unable. My heart motive for respect.

Q: How was Jesus so edgy, passionate, and confidently decisive, yet so gentle, approachable and warm?
A: He loved with a love that I cannot even begin to understand

I need to love more, and not try to change conditions and habits of mine. I am who I am, only love can affect me. What is it that 1 Cor. 13 says that I love so much? Without love, everything is just a resounding gong or a clashing of the cymbals? A resounding gong is dull, repetitive, ineffective, without meaning, and I think slightly irritating to always hear. On the other hand, a clashing of the cymbals is highly abrasive, irritating, overbearing, loud, and edgy.

And clearly, the passage was not asking to find a medium between the two, but already presenting that medium by prefacing that statement with.."without love".

I need to love. Not love more, 'cause just loving is hard enough.

Practicing Hate

If I had to do a series of posts on what an evil man I am, this blog would have many more posts. But it is strangely wholly reviving and cathartic for me--so here is post #1.

To box out my office mate (whom I have much trouble loving), I stick in my super hi-fi noise cancelling headphones and scroll to Artist: Tim Keller (aren't I so awesome and righteous?) and listen to a sermon. And then I keep my eyes still, straight ahead, and when he tries to get my attention I pretend I cannot hear or see him. It is an effective box out... until he taps my shoulder.

This has to be hypocrisy at its best. I lock myself in with "Jesus". I sit and want to be loved, feel loved, but the last thing I want to do is love. This isn't even avoiding love; this is how I practice hate, and sadly this is only one of many ways I do it. And sometimes, listening to Tim Keller or whatever Christian smorgashborg it might be, it makes the hating feel okay. What a completely brainwashing crazy thing a pair of noise-cancelling earphones can do.

I have to learn not only to step outside my own comfort zones, but be able to step inside others' comfort zones. Christ stepped out of his form as God, and entered so willingly the realm of sin, and then took the hit to become and die as the sinner.

tough to love

Some people are tough to love.

Jesus, how did you do it?

beyond description

You are beautiful beyond description,
Too marvelous for words,
Too wonderful for comprehension,
Like nothing ever seen or heard

Who can grasp your infinite wisdom?
Who can fathom the depths of your heart?

You are beautiful beyond description...

Luke 9:24

International Justice Missions (IJM) - Gary Haugen

“Love is something more stern and splendid than mere kindness…Kindness merely as such cares not whether its object becomes good or bad, provided only that it escapes suffering.” -C.S. Lewis

An excerpt from the article linked above (I underlined what I really liked):

     Sometimes the will of God is scary because he’s asking us to choose between a life that looks successful and a life that is actually significant. A life that wins the applause of our peers or a life that actually transforms lives through love. In Washington, DC, I think, one of the most exalted positions of life is actually becoming a Senator. Really though, history shows that you can actually be a senator of just about no significance. Sometimes it’s just confusing. Are we seeking success or significance? Jesus tried to be clear about all of this with his disciples. He said in Luke 9:24 “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.”

     Another colleague of mine, Sean, calls himself a mad scientist of this divine paradox. See, the hypothesis is that you’ll find your life when you lose it. So Sean decided to throw his life away, and being a proper mad scientist, tried first by doing an experiment and testing it on himself … and then on his wife and two kids. [Laughter.] Let me share with you how he said it: “IJM needed people to go overseas. I was not so afraid of going as I was to coming back. I was at the top of my profession;, I could do anything I wanted.” He was with one of the premier law firms here in town. “If I went overseas for three or four years to work for some little Christian group, I was sure I would come back to a crappy job, work with crappy people, live in a crappy house, and wear crappy slacks as I drink my crappy coffee while driving my crappy car. [Laughter.] But I just thought, ‘if I can rescue one child from the unspeakable horror of forced prostitution, it would outweigh any sacrifice I could possibly make.’ How could any sacrifice I make, how could it possibly compare to the daily abuse and suffering of a child locked in a brothel forced to serve four to seven customers a day? It was like math,” he said. “No emotion. I did not have the faith to believe that God could somehow provide for me and that I might even find joy in it. No, I just expected to be lonely and to suffer. But I signed on to try and save that one child.”

At times, my heart pounds with how God might and can use me. At other times, my heart pounds in fear that the last thing I will abide by is His will. Not really the riches part, more the "I'm more comfortable with status quo."

You can read more about IJM at www.ijm.org

writing

I enjoy writing. Yet, when I try to write an essay to gain admission into a school, it becomes a whole new ordeal. I hate writing to please. I hate writing while my mind is racing with thoughts on grammar, punctuation and word use. I want to just write -- free flow. Flow free. Fly. I want to fly with thoughts on what I am writing and not how I am writing. When I draw, I want to draw with simply the thought of what I am drawing and not how. Without the thoughts of, which paint brush? Long stroke? Short stroke? Circle or oval? Square or rectangle? Darker or lighter? The process is maddening. Just give me paper and pen and let me scream -- express and without delay. 

I want to express myself without worrying about the damning how's.

Maybe that's why I've never been too good at the arts. Or when people ask me, how do you pray? Sometimes I give flowery answers to make it sound more nice, but all I am really saying is -- just pray. Other days, I don't feel too good and spit out, "I just do it."  How? I'm not concerned about the how, I'm really concerned about the who......aren't you?

wine is better aged

 

Only time can age the wine.

One can try to perfect the temperature and humidity of the wine cellar, but again, only time can age the wine. You can shake it, stir it, expose it to more sunlight, store it under the cellar's wooden boards. Whatever the case, time cannot be expedited nor rushed. Maybe there's a chemical now that can speed the process? If there is, I remain dubious to such a chemical.

You can alter the settings and properties and what not, but there is only one constant that promotes change in wine, and that is time. All other factors are probably a good indicator of what kind of wine we may end up bottling.

Still, the issue may not lie in what we end up bottling, but when. Some of us bottle it up early, before time has taken its course, and carry around our grape extracts bottled too soon in dark, opaque, expensive wine bottles with a fresh cork stuck at the top. The deception, however, only lasts up until the moment we twist out the cork and invite others for a taste. They will swirl it in their mouths and swish it around their tongues longer than the norm. Like little children, they will grin and lean to each others sides and murmur, "Is this what I think it is?" until one will raise his voice and suggest that what they are drinking may just be grape juice. Affirmative nods are shared around the room by everybody except for the once-proud owner of this exquisite-looking bottle of wine. His eyes find shame on the floor and he silently curses his soul for the impatience that led him to bottle it a decade early. "It's too sweet, too tart, too fresh," they continue on in whispers loud enough to remind him to keep his eyes glued to the floor.

-----
I feel like this is me. I bottle things too early. I think I'm already there, or already here. But I sit here, and I remind myself that I am far from it. I must let myself age, and not be so instantly satisfied with what and who is around me and in front of me. Let things soak in. Too often I am deceived to believe that if I surround myself with good instruction, upstanding role models, encouraging advice, life lessons, and loving friends and family then instantly this new me is born out. Maybe that's exaggerating, but its that notion to a lesser degree. Regardless, I have learned, time and time again, for it to be wrong. I must let myself age.

Or maybe, this cycle is precisely how the human soul ages.

I don't know. Yet, I do know one thing: I am an absolute fool.

just

'Just'. I don't write of it today as an adjective that stems off the word 'justice' but write of it as an adverb. For example: I 'just' want to write about the word, just.

"In the end, I just want to have a good job." I heard this from a teenager recently and felt it to be the saddest, most self-undercutting statement I have heard in a while. His teenage youth only added weight to his words that carried undeniable overtones of hopelessness. Maybe hopelessness is too extreme to say. Lost dreams that never even materialized may be more accurate.

That quote wrenched my heart. It's different for one to say, "I want to have a good job" as opposed to "I just want to have a good job".

The contrasting juxtaposition is similar to be at a great feast and hear a young boy with a still-high timbre in his voice say, "I want the rice pudding..and..and..." all while the elderly grandfather murmurs for just the easily-digestible rice pudding. For the young boy, as he asks this, his eyes are darting around the dinner table. His eyes and nose cannot settle on any one thing and he has trouble asking for what it is he wants -- until he stammers, "I.. I..I just want it all." The grandfather looks on, already three and a half spoonfuls into his pudding and realizes that 'all' for him is confined merely to the rest of the pudding that is left in his bowl -- just the rice pudding.

When we qualify our statements with 'just', it's almost always limiting. It's synonymous with only, exactly, precisely, barely, perhaps and possibly. Everything about it points to the cracks where hope leaks. Where hope, unaware to us, escapes and goes on to be misplaced until we believe that hope lies in "just" something; whether it be good grades, a job, or even a nice family.

I speak on behalf of genuine hope when I say that it actively lies in everything - waiting for its moment to empower and enable faith. However, at the end, the little boy broke all the limiting effects of 'just'. As he struggled to grasp a way to have everything that was presented before him on the dining table, hope interjected and he clamored that he just wanted it all.