Where do you get your ideas from?

Who are you?

What do you believe?

I say that a person is incapable of knowing who they are unless they are committed to doing certain things. Behaviors that have no outward utility or consistent application float away in the wind and become a history of confusion and often, carnality. How could you know yourself if you don't believe you mean anything to anybody? How can you know yourself if you don't see the impact you have on the world. How can you even exist if you don't hold any effect over anything?

What would there be for you to observe, if not the effect of your actions on others? I believe that to live without purpose, belief or responsibility is to be utterly lost and slave to base impulse. That experience goes beyond pain or depression. It literally makes you nothing.

Where do you get the narrative of your life from?

I am learning to get mine from the Bible.

Salvation is a true experience that a person goes through when putting their life in the hands of Jesus Christ. Truth is uncovered by the analysis and living of His life. There was a man, who was born immaculately, who lived a perfect life, who was the incarnate God who walked the earth and displayed a magnificent power to give life, He was hated by the blind and loved by the needy, He was killed by the established elite and He defeated death perfectly. In His wisdom he explained to us who we are and who He is, In His love he modelled righteousness for every generation that followed Him. In His grace he willingly died at the hands of the ignorant, taking our deserved punishment in our place so that we could be with Him in glory. The accounts of Jesus' existence and the experience of those who knew Him were so cogent, and powerful that they both uprooted the established religious structure at the time, but brought an exceedingly potent truth to the story of creation and acted as the distilled aspect of the message that God intended for mankind from the beginning. What was thought to be a need for religious activity and legalism was discovered to be a commandment of love.

What was thought to be a God who was separate from creation was proven to be a God intricately involved in the lives and thoughts of His people. Recognizing that the Old Testament was written in preparation for Jesus and the gospel and the Church confirms the existence of YHWH as the God of all creation. The testimonies and eyewitness accounts of his corporeal existence and resurrection lend credence to the established theological doctrine revealed to the authors of the New Testament. And the experience of the immediate change that happens in the heart during salvation and the output of a fruitful and sanctified Christian life that is manifested despite one's original nature, as facilitated by the Holy Spirit is proof enough for your's truly to be utterly convinced of the need for Christ. I was once (and recently) nothing more that a lost, hurting, and dying soul trying desperately to fashion my own god through false worship and exploration into my own dark heart. It led to addiction, sickness, heartache, debt, loss, and put me far too close to an early grave. I thank God for the deliverance that came with salvation and for the roadmap to fulfillment and purpose that is the Holy Scriptures.

I exhort you, look inward and recognize that you are inherently flawed. Understand that without God a person can do no good thing. Realize that the wages of sin truly is death, and that Hell follows shortly behind. The word Gospel means 'good news', and I encourage you to see that. Seek God, repent for your sin, turn fully to Him and find the truth that you have been running from. You need Him.

Dark room, all alone

thoughts of the day unravel

successes and failures

and all of life's treasures

combine putting the man on trial

in his lonesome desperation

and refusal to correct himself

he sins again in agony

despite the harm he does himself,

and cries.

so many scrambled values igniting in his mind

how many blessings kept from him

because of how he spends his time

and oh that guilt, that shame

that lack of sense of purpose

the coldness of a man who sleeps in shadows

the anger of that man who sees the light

the trials of a man who does not know how

to cultivate a righteous life

but oh, that sun, will come again tomorrow

and the banner of the cause will somehow rise

and the call to arms will beckon him to prosper

and he will choose whether to live among the Wise

who guides him only when he follows

and who does not tarry in correcting

the faults that lie at the bottom of the heart

of a man who tries to decide to fight

daily facing the fear of loss of life

he, who avoids the knowledge of what is right

so often just to keep from moving

out of the shackles of

cold wet darkness

in which he is most comfortable

and he waits for it to happen

as though he must take no part in it

as though he could never accomplish it

as though it were all on his shoulders to bear

and so he waits for it to happen

and does nothing

and he waits for it to happen,

and does nothing.

It is quite possible that no one but God really knew him. This slow old man standing across the counter avoided direct eye contact as he placed two items to be purchased in in front of me. Having passed through the litany of first impressions and prejudiced notions about what I think he is, he lingers in my attention, maybe even just a half a second longer than is typical with this sort of interaction. One comes to realize when in the face of hundreds of strangers each day just how fleeting life can be. Entire persons, some beautiful, some not as much (to me anyway) passing through like a river, over a 9 hour period; ceaselessly moving in the door, through the store to checkout and off to the car. An assembly line designed subtly by minds much more focused than mine on efficiency.

And here was this man, buying a drill bit and a candybar, shuffling through his wallet to find the $4.29 he owes for the lot, having neglected to round up his change for charity. Counting out pennies now he mutters some quiet apology for how long this is taking and I quickly assure him that everything is just fine while glancing to the side at the line that was now forming. In this space of time, so many meaningful questions could be asked, so many statements of love and care, some good will established between two people but I just looked at him with impatience in my heart and a banal expression of non-threatening joyishness on my face suggesting that I really wouldn't mind if this took all day.

It takes effort to care about people. It's one thing to be kind and attentive, and to do your job in a professional manner. Those are important attributes in a healthy and productive life. But to care, actually care. Well I'm not so sure I even know how to do that. This guy in front of me may be so used to being invisible that this interaction would hold no bearing on him, even if it were his last. I wondered how little thought, how little time or devotion might have been spent on him, or the person behind him for that matter. And yet through this near-pity I still notice the uprising of impatient anger, the goal-oriented "I'm just trying to do my job" attitude that sort of molds my personality here at work and there isn't a second that I'm on the clock that it doesn't feel justifiable to think of these people as "customers". Nothing more than small separate goals accomplished through short scripted interactions. No relationships, no feelings, just "hello", "how are ya", "goodbye".

He actually looks at me:

"Looks like I'm gonna have to break a fifty"

"Not a problem sir,"

money is exchanged, and our hands touch briefly causing me to instantly think that I need to use some hand sanitizer, which I will promptly do as soon as I'm done here. His change is $45.71, I have to open a roll of quarters and a baby starts to cry from the back of the line. Some of the faces are becoming noticeably upset at having to wait more than 120 seconds to get through the checkout and I can't tell if they're upset with him or me.

As I reach out to give him the money he looks me dead in the eye and closes both hands around mine, folding my hand into a tight fist with the money inside. He doesn't smile, or say anything, he just puts a finger over his lips making this now an incredibly private moment despite the eyes of strangers on us.

It was the nicest thing a person had done for me in a long time.

I wish that I could forget the way it feels to be intoxicated.

We all have natural urges and desires, for food, fellowship, rest, sex, etc. Those drives are natural and a healthy person is capable of exercising control over them in order to be productive. The craving of drugs is not among these natural urges. They are synthetic additions to the landscape of motivating forces within us, and they all predicated on some manifestation of brokeness, pain, or selfishness within the circumstantial contexts of life. A desire to escape or enhance what life has to offer.

Knowing what it's like to be drunk and singing karaoke, or to be stoned at the movies sort of takes away a certain level of enjoyment out of life, knowing that it could be "better" with the addition of X substance. Of course it wouldn't be better, I've tried the "I don't value sobriety like other people do" thing, and it just isn't profitable. There is a reason that we do not naturally or regularly feel the way we when we are intoxicated, and that's because we're not supposed to feel those things.

Euphoria is a blessing, elation is a blessing, relaxation is a blessing, warmth and feelings of goodwill are blessings and it is a blessing these experiences are dependant on context. Going out of your way to manufacture long-lasting emotional states for the sake of the experience itself is futile and dangerous. Without the exclusive and limited nature of emotion, there wouldn't be a way to organize a hierarchy of importance in our lives. If everything was equally amazing all the time there'd be no difference between shit and shinola, as it were. But when you give yourself over to constant intoxication, everything feels exactly how you want it to feel as often as you take the drug. Then you start to recognize that it's the drug, not the life experiences, that you want. You start to attach yourself to those feelings and your identity enmeshes with the drug experience, and the very thought of never feeling that way again becomes terrifying. And just like that, the adventure is taken out of life and you're left calculating out your life moment to moment, basing your schedule around when a certain pill is gonna kick in, how much money you have for the bar, or planning entire days around 8-12 hour periods of time where you will be useless to anybody but the pizza delivery guy.

Despite all that, I know what it's like to feel and see things in ways that are literally impossible without ingesting different kinds of poison. And I often find myself missing it like you'd miss a dead relative. It's almost a constant a state of ingratitude, as if the beauty of life isn't good enough as it is. Like a rubber band that gets stretched beyond it's limit and never fully takes its original shape again.

Don't do drugs kids.

up in the night watch

with vain imaginings

hallucinations of progress and love

just enough to satiate

until sleep comes

and God revives you in the morning

faced again with the truth of it all.

Nothing's all that bad,

but fantasies make it all seem worse.

you worship a broken and dying vessel

and pour out all your effort into that belief

maintaining the evil of weakness

relishing the absence of strength

you wander in hopelessness wanting to feel

and seeking out pleasures and moments

repeating the cycle again and again

until everything about you is worthless

and you feel in dark moments

the call to adventure

but you do not know how to respond

be it fear or impotency

or just lack of effort you

stick to the path you are on

do not question it again

your misery is valid

everything that hurts within you

is burning and trying to make you better

the lostness is crying out to God

and you gag it 'till it's silent

trading in a few small actions

for ever deepening fantasies

and spiraling cacophonies

of emotional depravity

and childlike wonder turned sour by addiction

and at some point, yes, it's too late.

a creature kept

in perfect conditions

still with a will of Its own

carries out Its priorities

in spite of the way It was shown.

and in time It will fall into,

as if by random chance,

a slipstream of progression-

a forward-moving dance

and oh, that poor small creature

with prosperity in Its midst

will come to see Itself as able

to justify why It exists.

that creature kept

so far from truth or trouble

wandering away from pain

accidentally finds a master

to serve as It lives out its days

so It stands out at a crossroads

to witness the unfolding of time

marking Its movement by sacrifices,

and the gray hairs and the lines

as the bright colors and music

fade into dullness.

and It senses the blackness

standing there staring

waiting for It to arrive.

and It's no longer a carnival

try as It might It can find no fun

but the conditions still, are perfect

to redeem the creature of mud.

the perspective must be guided,

vertically and outward.

Not from within, but out from above

from the place the creature started.

Drawn to the plan that was intended,

Through the Son that incarnated,

and His love which never faded,

by the mercy that was fated,

from the time that time began.

What does a creature imply?

Where will you go when you die?

You who intentionally leaves the presence of God, who wanders looking for Him where He is not, who are confused and hurting and feeling the lost and overwhelming sadness of a child who has lost their Father.

Your confusion is justifiable but so unnecessary I have been and often am there alongside you. Do not forget, He is there for you, He has been where He is since the beginning of everything.

Every moment is a crossroads, every choice has the potential to be worship. He made you, after all.

Thank God for Jesus Christ. Praise God for his love. Praise God for the Bible.

John 17:25-26.

Not all works are good.

Spinning wheels just kick up mud.

When will you move on?

he was a lover not a fighter

and when his wife gave him a daughter

he was frightened and delighted

but he noticed he despised it

cuz he could never love the world again from then

a man who'd not seen war

a woman with her children all living

a house watched over by God

with blessing after blessing after blessing

and he resented the lack of challenge

as men are wont to do

and it ate away at a part of him

that was only to be used when necessary, anyway.

but he felt it and hated that it happened.

she was a lover too, and her life flowed seamlessly

as a river often times of breathless delight

protected and shepherded by the men in her life

and she could tell something was wrong

but she didn't know how to make it right

and his rancid attitude pervaded

which killed every joy in its proximity

he never thought that he felt happy

and he hated how selfish he was

but the child, so soft-hearted

lived like her mother did

unaware, however of the bitterness around her.

Love was the only thing she ever needed.

and he never once denied her of it.

Eventually it was all okay

the man, made humble, set aside his pride

and tried to serve his wife the way he knew he had to

and his girls began to blossom then

and the souls in the house could rest again.

Every man is warring,

though often there's no

blood shed.