Forgotten Things

I am fascinated with forgotten things. Things that were carefully planned, drawn and loved long ago. The workers showed up day by day making a living to survive by their families to this work site. They bled all over the skeleton of this future work of art, but even further future wasteland of debris. They went home filthy with sweat and dirt. Their hands were cut and calloused and dry. One day they completed the project. Stopped to look at this beautiful piece of history, and went on to the next one. Now here it is. You will only find homeless and addicts there. But before it was a venue for traveling acts, theater, film, and any other activity that you can think of. People laughed and cried in these buildings, they got married and had children here. It's halls were littered with patrons and employees alive, all there for whatever reason. Now the bricks are falling off of it. The stages have gaping holes. The seats are shredded and stained. It used to be someones favorite place to go, now it is a wasteland.

I don't know why this makes me so sad. It always has. I even got a ticket for trespassing one of these places once, just to soak in the history and imagine the torn curtains once again vibrant and striking with color.

I think this is also my biggest fear of death. I don't want to be dilapidated. I don't want to turn from a vibrant person who feels so strongly into something that once was but now has been forgotten. Even though I know I will still exist and that I will be in such beauty with such people, I still get sad to think that I didn't leave a lasting impression. I didn't do something that won't be forgotten. But I won't. I will raise my children to love Christ and be a difference to others. I will work with these teenagers and parishioners to fill their lives with love, but one day, hopefully generations later, all memory and signs of my existence will be gone from here. This shouldn't make me sad, but it does. I tell myself the same things that everyone else do about it. I am in Heaven when I die, why do I care?

I just do.







Sing.
Migrate.

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Smarty Pants

Do you ever get tired of listening to your own voice? Sometimes when I am talking, in my head I am telling myself to shut up already. It has been like that this past several days. I just get sick of running my mouth. It makes me mad when I think my words are coming off preachy or pretentious. I don't mean to be. So let's get some things straight before I write again.

1. I don't think I know everything. In fact I don't think I know much of anything.
2. I am opinionated, but I recognize that I can be wrong. However, I sell out to things. If I believe it, I believe it with everything in me. Tearing that reality from me is like tearing food from the fists of a bear. I talk a lot of crap, but I am aware that I may be wrong about things.
3. I try to write in a way that people don't get confused about my tone. I want you to picture the look on my face while I am writing as if I were talking to you. So I get overly descriptive. This sometimes sounds pretentious. But there is nothing worse than being misunderstood because a person can't see the love in your eyes.
4. I use extremes and exaggerate words a lot. I just did it in number 3. "there is nothing worse than being misunderstood." There are many things worse than being misunderstood. I get that, but I said it anyway and I don't know why. A movie is great or it sucks. A song is my favorite or it is terrible. It's just the way I am because I think exaggeration is funny. But it does lend itself to more misunderstanding of me. There is a certain type of person that does not like me from the start and it takes sometimes years for me to chip away at them. I don't know why this is the case, I can't pinpoint what I have done to them, but I think these 4 concepts I have shared with you may have something to do with it.
5. Oh yeah, and I am extremely loud. This may be why I get tired of hearing myself talk which means others really get sick of it. I will screw up your ear drums if you spend too much time with me.

Also, I don't intend to change any one of these 5 things.









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Migrate.

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DNA

If you liked Gattaca, the movie, you will want to check this link out. This is the really real world now. It isn't a movie anymore. Incidentally, Gattaca was named after a genetic sequence for those who were wondering about the significance of the title to the actual movie.

I was wondering about the significance of the movie to actual life. Turns out it isn't all that far off, or at least they say it isn't.  I pose a hypothetical:

You are pregnant and go to your OB when you notice symptoms of pregnancy. Your OB does a work up and refers you to a genetic counselor who tests your's and your spouses DNA. What they find is a strong possibility that your child will be born deformed or mentally incapacitated. Now you have this ethical dilemma. Is the possibility of a "Normal" child worth running the risk of a deformed one? One that will require all of your lives, all of the time. Is that kid worth it? It is a nasty thing to think about because human life can never be correctly predicted or judged. Another question:

What would the world be like if we always had this capability of knowing? What if so many of history's world changers never were born at all because of the possibility of them being sick?

Abraham Lincoln (Bipolar) would have never worked to set the slaves free. Isaac Newton (Bipolar) would never have discovered the gravitational relationship between the earth and the moon. Winston Churchill (Depression) would have never led the world to the defeat of Hitler in WWII. There are so many deformities and disorders and so many people who suffer from them. But would all of them choose not to be born? Would they choose the path of non-existence to avoid the pain of being alive. I don't think most of them would.

Ruth Graham is the daughter of evangelist legend Billy Graham. She spent her life living in the shame and darkness of various eating disorders, drugs, and depression. She thought that she could never speak of her struggles because of who she was and who people expected her to be. After all she was the child of the most famous evangelist of all time. It didn't change her condition. That simple fact changed nothing of the darkness that lingered in her life.

She went on to write the book "In Every Pew Sits A Broken Heart." Her message: Being a Christian doesn't guarantee a perfect life. It doesn't guarantee wholeness. Sin wrecked that for us long ago and for now we will have to wade through some very rough waters. One's that threaten to pull you under and slam your head on the rocks. A current that desires to drag you under until you breathe your last. This is life for some. Ruth Graham accepted Jesus for who He really is, a healer and deliverer and not the she expected to see. But do the scientists think to ask those who suffer if it is all worth it? My guess is no.









Sing.
Migrate.









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Chosen

It smells like a carnival outside. The wind is blowing just right to bring a little bit of someone's fun to my senses while I sit in one of my quiet places.
I love carnivals. I think they're beautiful, but only at night when the lights are on. At a carnival, you can sit in that seat, buckle up and spin round and round, letting the wind push back your hair from your brow. You laugh as hard as you can as tears drip down your cheeks. They help you forget for a couple hours about the things of life that have left you barren.

But it doesn't matter how much fun you are having, at some time, they are gonna turn off the lights and you have to leave. Back to life. Back to reality.

Some people have been given different gifts and circumstances. Some people are that smile that lights up a person's entire face. Others are stones on a weathered shore. When the lights are turned out, some go home and sleep peacefully through the night and wear their joy all over themselves. Others go home and pray for peace as we sleep, dreading what their dreams might bring them, and wake up fighting to see the sun, so we can rise out of that bed.

Whether you are one or the other, God loves you and has blessed you all the same, even if it looks different. I think this is where many Christians have it wrong. There is a different, less offensive and trickier version of the prosperity gospel. This one doesn't promise riches, but does promise that life will come to you. It tells us that Jesus doesn't allow misery for His children. It promises us that everything that happens to you has happened to better your life and overall happiness. This can be true, but it isn't always true. Sometimes I think we go through horrible things not to make us happier, but to Glorify God in the way we keep standing. Some people suffer things that don't heal. People lose loved ones and we may not see them in Heaven. Thank God I haven't lost anyone yet that I didn't expect to see there, but others have. Some things break and aren't ever fixed. For every bleeding woman that touches the hem of Christ's robe and are healed, there are millions that still bleed despite their cries for mercy. It doesn't mean God doesn't care or that He doesn't have eternal paradise with that person in His foresight to make Him smile while His heart breaks watching us cry. It simply has to be this way for whatever reason He has for it. Read Job if you think God doesn't allow misery in His children. Read Job if you don't believe that another God fearing friend would blame the afflicted for his sores.

Christ is about us being a light to those that are broken. He proved that He often chooses the broken to go and follow Him. Even if it costs them everything.









Sing.
Migrate.



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Flickering Lights

Sitting in front of fires has a certain effect on people. We look up at the stars above us and remember that the world is so small. We are so small. Our problems, our lives, our very existence. I am trying to have fun and relax. I have been under so much stress in school and needed this few days up north to unwind. Unwinding however, allows the things buried beneath to surface. I could really use some time to talk to my friend who is somewhere far better than here. Everything beautiful reminds me of him. I always thought of Will that way. I wanted to be like him and now the man I looked up to so much is gone from here. He is there and I am here. I have memories, but they will never take place of calling my best friend when I need him. Celebrating life's most important moments with him. Growing old and sharing a room at the nursing home. I hate reality sometimes. It can be so cruel and nasty.

Sometimes we get to have everything we need, but sooner or later in a dying world, some of what we need goes away while we are sleeping on Christmas eve. Sometimes it all comes crashing down. This doesn't mean God isn't good, it means life isn't fair.







Sing.
Migrate.




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What A Day To Be Alive

"What a day to be alive. What a day to realize I'm not dead." Greg Laswell

Finally, a decent day in Michigan. I swear this summer is worse than any winter I have weathered while wearing a woolen wetsuit. Good day. A nice day. A day I needed to win one small victory. When you have something in your life where performance is paramount, you picture the scenario of both victory and defeat. There is not any other options. Victory or defeat. No middle ground most of the time. Today I won! It has really been a while since I had that thought run through my head. Although winning and losing is really all in your head isn't it? We perceive facts of life as a loss or gain whether it is or isn't. But today I felt like I won. Validated. I felt like my instincts were coming closer to where the Spirit of God is leading.

Might seem trivial to you, or to those that have made a lifestyle at winning, but my sort of winning has nothing to do with banquets or being held in another's high esteem.  My kind of winning is when I feel like my God is reaching me. Finally. I am so stubborn and try so hard to follow the way I am supposed to . I have no excuse for my folly, only regret at wasted time, effort, and heartbreak. So when days come when I have been searching my heart and bleeding blood, and making major sacrifices, and God confirms that I am finally listening, I get ecstatic.

All this coming from one of the most competitive people you will meet. I have fought for so much in my life and overcome by the grace and strength of God many obstacles that should have ended me. I have battled death the majority of my life, both in those I love and my own. I have seen the effects of the enemy and the temptations of this world. I have been brought to my lowest point and understand what the final moment of life is like. I have been kicked around, told I was nothing, and laughed at. But here I sit. A big freaking smile on my face. Alive and invigorated. My God is good. The world can be bad, but what I know is that my God is good.

He never promised us an easy road to travel, just the opposite. He told us to take up our crosses and follow him and I feel like I have plenty of miles to cross before I get there when I see Him face to face, but by the power and strength of God, here I am. Still carrying this cross as best as I can. I have dropped it so many times and sat down to rest, but God lifts me up again and reminds me that the cross is easy to bear for me, because He took it's weight. I get to feel some splintering on my neck, but the weight is gone. The destination is no longer Golgotha, it is Heaven. It doesn't matter the specific victory, it matters the source.








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Because Jesus Was Here

And my faith will be my eyes. - Chris Tomlin

It isn't easy to live this way. It takes sometimes, all of your strength to press on in the direction of the current when every dashing wave is pushing you back. It sometimes, maybe even mostly doesn't even make any sense. It takes plenty of falls for someone to realize their eyesight is bad. We don't like to admit it, and we don't like to wear glasses or rely on something other than what is kept in that skeletal ball above our shoulders. So we fall while relying on ourselves to get to the right destination, and we get hurt and so remind ourselves that we are not very sharp in vision and are clumsy in life. But tomorrow is a different day. The sun goes down on our mistakes and our eyes blink open to the sun peeking through the shades and everything is new again. That is the beauty of grace. We don't have to live in yesterdays mistakes, we may have to live with some consequences of those mistakes, but we do not have to hold on to the guilt or terror that they bring. We really can start over.

Eventually, I think we finally learn how to close these eyes and blindly follow a Savior that we have seen faithful our entire lives. I think we do eventually learn to let go and let faith in our God lead us in the path we are supposed to go in. When I say, let faith in God lead us, I do not at all mean that faith is anything mystical at all, but that the God we have the faith in is faithful. We have faith because we understand what it is He sees in us.

He does not see what we see. We see with these same eyes that have failed us over and over again. He sees clearly at who we really are, then He forgives us for that. Erases what we used to be, and makes us new again. We don't have to be what we used to be. When I say used to be, I also mean what you were 5 minutes ago when you messed up. Maybe you lost your temper and lash out at your wife and kids. Said horrible things you don't mean. Maybe you just got off of the computer after falling victim to predator internet sites. Maybe you really thought you couldn't live without that pill or that pipe.  We can go on dancing in public. We can go on singing in joy and living the art that God has made you with. Because Jesus was here.

Every moment of life trusted in Christ is a forgiven moment.






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Migrate.








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The Wailing Wall

In Israel there is this stone barrier that separated the Jews from their hearts. The wailing wall. It was a place that signified the separation from their temple to their God. They had been banned. During the reign of Constantine I, the Jews were apparently aloud to come to this wall once a year to grieve the fate of their people.

I read about that in my church history book and it is printed in black and white, written like a textbook for anyone to easily gloss over and fall asleep to. But it is called the wailing wall, not the depression wall, not the regret wall, not the nostalgic wall. This was a place of real mourning and pain. The pain you experience when you have to endure the loss of something or someone you never could have imagined being without. It isn't a sad place to be, it is a miserable place to be. Yet it is printed without life in some textbook that only few will ever read about.

I think I have a few wailing walls myself, and I think many of us do. Places we go to grieve the loss of something that was taken from us, our innocence, our hope, or our security. We are busy. It sits inside the cellar waiting for us to open the door. We rarely do because it causes too much pain to do so. But when we do, when we cannot take one more minute of neglecting it, we go down there and sit. We let all of that stuff come out finally. Maybe once a year, maybe a dozen times, but every time, we are glad we did, because there is a time for mourning. I think people need to remember that the Bible tells us that there is a time for mourning. It goes on to say: James 4:9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Life as a believer in your one and only Savior Jesus, is not always peaches and sunshine. It doesn't mean that life is now going to take it easy on you. God is not going to protect you from every violent accident or deadly virus. God gives us hope in something better than what we have here, something that is lasting and real. Something that man could never touch. But He does not offers us wonderful lives of peace and laughter here. For some, being a Christian means offering their bodies to the wolves to be eaten and stomped on. Is it fair? Yes, it is. We deserve worse, but isn't that what Jesus is really about. Redemption from what we really deserve?

We don't have to pretend that we are all just fine. Some people are and have been blessed since birth with the graces of God for His own purposes and others have not had the same life experience. If it hurts, it hurts. If you are a Christian, it still hurts. Because pain is pain. But realize in your pain that God has more than you do. We hurt because we lost a friend or relative to a disease, well God has more pain because He didn't intend for people to have to die. We feel pain for losing half of our hearts to a friend who lost his way, well God weeps louder than you. He grieves too. Remember that it isn't God that invented sin, it was us. This sin is what causes loss all over the world. All over, there are people's wailing walls. We have to drive by them sometimes daily and remember the weight that is sitting on the bottom side end of our hearts. The mothers of terrorists cry for the loss of their children too, just as we do. Pain is a universal trait that was born into us the moment we emerged from our mothers. Remembering where hope lies is the key to happiness and peace. The only key.










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Migrate.

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Paid To Smile

 Just look away and smile. That is usually my advice when dealing with things you cannot control pushing against you. People get paid to smile. Waitresses, bank tellers, DMV workers (or not), exotic dancers, lawyers, health care professionals, pastors, and just about every other profession that has to deal with the public. Except telemarketers, they don't have to smile. Why? Because people want to be treated like their presence is desired. They want validation of themselves and worthy of another's time and effort. If we were to frown at them, they would take that as displeasure that they are standing in front of us. So even when they are being difficult, we smile, or at least we should. Because what is the point in moping around right? What is the point of wearing your feelings on your face all the time. This is why I think mind reading would be a miserable super power. You would find out too much about what that person thinks about you. If we wear our feelings on our faces, we tell others things that are not going to help them enjoy life and see Christ.

I am not an advocate of fake. I hate fake. I became a master at it, but I always hated it. But holding back things that destroy is not being fake. Smiling when nothing is in your control is realizing that God still is in control. We smile because God works things out for those that love Him. If someone is against you, God will not let you be destroyed.

I think this is why Jesus said to turn the other cheek. Because if someone is going to slap you, you might not see it coming in time to duck, so why not take the slap and give the other cheek too, because greater is He who is in you than in the world. What can man really do to us. Kill us? Ok, that's still good because we have eternity with God, although our kids might be mad. God is huge and works in very mysterious ways. God uses our control for His benefit. He gave it to us, so we can be symbols of the risen Christ. The same God that hung on the cross and prayed for His murderers.

Just smile. Even if you don't get paid, because life is short. We are a mist that appears for a while then vanishes into thin air. What kid of life do you want to leave behind?


Sometimes laughter is all we really have to control. Even when things are terrible and you are in misery. There are still those little things that touch is in a way that can give us an isolated moment of escape. A funny movie, a friend who knows how to change your mood, or music that makes you want to dance.










Sing.
Migrate.

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Whammy!

I thank God every few months for the learning curve some of us need. Some people get it right away and don't forget it. Others like me get it, then forget it, then get it, then forget it in circles until we stumble.

Sometimes I need a pinched nerve in my neck for a week to remind me of the blessings God has lavished on me. To remind me that I am in control of nothing. Things get really busy and at times I don't think I can continue, but then comes an SUV to knock some sense into me, or nerve damage, or pressure from outside forces. They remind me that I am losing my way. I am wandering aimlessly and have forgotten to follow the cloak of Christ closely so I don't lose him in the noise.


So I find a happy place and go there to black out that noise. To get alone with my God. Apologize for forgetting about Him from day to day, throw my burdens on Him, and rest easy in the truth that God has me firmly in His hand. God is not trying to trick me, He isn't testing me because He delights in watching me fail time and time again. He tests me because if He doesn't I may forget about my need for Him altogether. The simple truth is that I cannot even breathe without Him. I have nothing. Nothing. I am a pauper, and a vagrant. I am helpless to care for myself, much less my family. He is everything that has ever been any good in me. Forgetting about that is like forgetting you are blind and trying to drive. I will crash every time. And so will you.







Sing.
Migrate.

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God's Story

What is this blog. Is it a "Christian" blog, made for Christians to read and grow with? Is it a blog for broken people searching for something different than what is in front of their faces? Is it entertainment to watch a guy break apart over electric lights and ideas?

I remember walking. I was drunk. I was walking. I had this bottle in my hand that I had almost finished. I was walking to this church at midnight. I dropped that bottle now empty and walked into that church for the last time. I stepped into that confession booth and told the guy everything I could remember doing wrong. I told him my entire life story over the last few months. I had walked these streets every night alone, looking for a way out of what I thought I knew to be the only real way to escape. This night, I knew there was no escape from a world that hates you. So I told him everything. He was alarmed. Anyone would be. I told him I didn't want to go to hell, but I believed it was my destiny. I had seen enough. I had heartbreak worse than I can even remember now. It hurt too bad.

I left and went to the tracks. That night, I saw God present in my life for the first time.

I don't know what this blog is. I started it as a way to express the things going on inside me. I wrote and wrote. Things happened that changed me, both for the bad and for the good, but I like to think it all has led to the good.

People I don't know read it. It is a weird thing if you think about it. People you have never met reading what is festering inside your head. Reading about the lessons you have learned from 15 years of heartbreak. Most people just like drama. I get it, I do too.

But I think the real issue here is that people who read forget that the person behind those letters typed with tears is a real live person. A person that is fragile and expressing their most cherished memories.

I write because I want people to see the truth. I have lived lies my whole life and finally want people to see what a real live broken person looks like and hopefully see what a real live God working in him looks like.

I am God's story. So are you.









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Migrate.

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Dancing

You can stand in church and raise your hands, and it won't mean anything. You can fall on your face in humility and surrender yourself to God helpless before him, and it will be pointless. You can spend most of your day in quality time praying and reading your Bible and it will mean nothing to God. You can surrender your time and money into helping the poor and orphans and it won't even blip on God's radar.


Without love.



Too many Christians are trying to function in a Christian life, doing all of the Christian things; observing all the right holidays, spending their time in worship and prayer, yet treat others harshly with no regard that they are humans.

We are humans, we are not programs.


God put superior importance on loving each other because that is precisely the closest thing to who He really is. The only way we can mimic Him. Without love, there isn't a thing we can do to make God smile. There isn't a thing we can do that will have any meaning at all. We will be just making noise and following impotent dance steps with ourselves. Life is a dance that requires passion, not static cognition of the right moves: That would look like a robot dancing. It takes grace, passion, and most of all love to live a life that has real meaning. It requires compassion, grace, humility, and perseverance.

I have been mistreated a lot throughout the years, some by people I love dearly and serve with all my heart. It has caused anxiety and sadness and hurts every time. But pain and anger doesn't fix anything, it exasperates the problem.

I have been kicked in the teeth this year. I don't have the energy or desire to fight or to let little annoyances eat at me. I am glad of this because I shouldn't have been letting those things get to me anyways. God is for me. I repeat that daily lately when trying to remind myself that opposition has no chance. God works things for my own good because I love Him and try to follow Him faithfully. A loving human being loves other human beings, even when they are being turds.









Sing.
Migrate.








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2: 57 AM

My clock tells me to go to bed. It never did tell me things that I wanted to hear. It chirps and chirps trying so hard to change the way I function. It works most days. I have to get up. I have to get in that shower and make myself presentable. I have to wreak of confidence and security. But I don't. I am not confident in much, except that I love my wife and kids. I love my church through thick and thin. I love my brothers. I love the way God has changed the way I see things and people, and I love the way God makes things good for those that love Him even when it hurts.

Growing up, there were times of fear and worry. Time to move again. Time to change schools. Time to make new friends. But in every school, in every city, I made friends. I always had someone. I was never physically alone. Whenever I needed anything, I found something, someone.

It was during some really dark days that I found Will and Joe (The Body and Gumby to you). God gave me people that would die for me. He gave me siblings closer than any other brothers. He gave me a little bit of Himself in those two guys. Most mornings I woke at the foot of Will's bed, just beneath his behemoth foot that bounced above my face. He would say things in his sleep. I could never decipher the words, but he was saying something. Something terribly important if not just terrible. Now he whispers things in my ears as I sleep. Not literally, I do not believe in ghosts, but really do think we can learn from everything and everyone. Sometimes I think he passed his broken heart to me, or me to him. I don't know. But I miss watching those rockets soar into the sky. I miss the reflection in his eyes as he watched his work reach above the night sky into the unknown.








Sing.
Migrate.

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