Brevity.

If life is just a breath of air

And nothing can’t take us anywhere,

If we are but a speck in the sand

In the world which’s ensconced within his Hand,

If Solomon’s thoughts of meaninglessness are true,

What does this mean for me and for you?

It means make your one breath a breath of fire!

That ignites a torch so that all may see

We are not alone on this beach

There are thousands next to you and me.

So love that speck-with-one-breath you find

Yourself next to cause they’ll be gone

So very soon.

High tide is coming with the moon.

Love your fellow specks of sand

Made in the image of our rock and our salvation.

We, though very small, are all part of this scene

Our Rock choose to break himself for us 

So that all of us together could remain forever His queen.

So here we lie, surrounded by our fellow one breathed, tiny, Rocklike, specks of sand. All of us in our own unique way resembling the Rock, our Father. But we lie here afraid of the inevitable tides that sweep all away. We sit here among each other afraid to be lonely. We think that just because we’re slightly misshapen with a bulge here or a crack there, that we’re less. That our part does not matter.

How silly it all is in the big scheme,

The sunrise scene.

We are the sand that gives footing to the sea! We help reflect the Son.

He is beautiful. We are beautiful. And He rises to warm us! Everyone!

So I’m going to use my life, the brief breath of air that I am,

To realize I’m part of the plan and to say thank you! to the I AM.

Floating on.

Scholastically, this semester was a failure.

Because

I researched what I wanted to know about: philosophy, the stock market, 3D printing, mechanics, magnetism, social morality, social justice, theology, music Theory, wrote my own piano song.


I followed my own intellectual curiosities.
I read some works of American philosopher William James.
I read some of the Scottish philosopher David Hume.
I read some of Bertrand Russell.
I read Machiavelli.
Robert Solomon.
Tolstoy.
Thomas Aquinas.
Immanuel Kant.
Aristotle.
Socrates.
Epicurus.

I opened an account with Charles Schwab. I researched investing in the stock market. How 3D printing is going to change the world. I tried to find an American company involved in Graphene to invest in. I read about FOREX and wanted to get involved with that. I read about Bitcoin.

I tried to learn Music Theory. I wrote my own songs on the Piano. I wanted to transpose it onto sheet music.

I followed my intellectual curiosities. And i'm being reprimanded for it because the cost was a semester of school. I'm going to fail a few classes this semester, most likely. But does the end justify the means? What have I learned at the cost of a semester of school?

I've learned there are people who have changed the world by thinking about the world. These philosophers I've read about sought wisdom and understanding with a fervor and used what they learned about the past to discover the cause of the present, to steer today's direction of the present and effect the future. That is what I want. I want to understand why. Because there is a troubled world out there. I want to help it. And if a person 3,000 years ago could do it, so can I. I've learned that I have an earth sized curiosity but a volleyball sized head. Others would say I have a pea sized ability to focus. But so does a dog that you're trying to dress in a tutu.

This semester my eyes have been opened. I see in the big picture now. In the big picture, figuring out what I want in life at the cost of a semester of school is justified. It's unfortunate that my family's hard work and hard-earned money has paid a semesters tuition. I am sorry about that. But I know what I want to do now:

I want to simplify. Less school. Less hours. More study. Less frustration. More fulfillment. Laser beam. Not flashlight.

Exact steps towards my goal: Philosopher/theologian.

Mental Health Update:

November 12, 2013

So apparently i've been leading people to believe that I may not finish school based on what i've written here in the recent past. That I'm so caught up in this world that i'm writing about that i'm going to just give up and quit school. My response:

I understand how you think that I may quit school. Because what I've written has been written in the height of my frustration with these struggles. When I post somthing here, it's partly theraputic for me, to get this stuff out of me, and to let people past my walls to see what i'm really going through. I'm not going to say that what i've written is not what i've actually thought. Because it is. BUT this is not the way I feel on a day to day basis. These are the infrequent spouts of volcanic passion.  I've actually grown to love Literary criticism and I think I may look into pursuing a graduate degree in it. Please don't think that I've gone off the deep end and am considering giving up and not finishing school. Why in the world would I do that? 

I guess when I think about posting something on this blog I am under the false assumption of thinking that people who I see on a daily basis will be the ones reading it, and that what they find when they come here is a different side to what they see when they talk & interact with me regularly. I've failed to realize that people who don't see me or communicate with me everyday and who read my thoughts here may come to the conclusion that I've gone nearly insane lol.... 

So while I have come to realize & voice that I am frustrated with certain aspects of my passions, and life in general, It's not overcome me. I love this stuff. I love it. And I hate it. And I want to understand. 

Happy 11 12 13!

Float on

Love, 

David 

Tuesday November 12th 2013

The Madness of Literary theory 

New Criticism: The history book is the facts about what really happened written by people who were not there to witness it happen. 

New Historicism: No. That's no quite right. How can they know what really happened if they were not there to see it? The history book is the interpretation of that event, by the author who lives in a world outside of the event he/she is writing on; Therefore, history (outside of primary sources) is just the interpretation of what happened. Not "Fact" per se. It may be true for this particular author, but it's not to be accepted as THE facts. 

Student A:So that means I can read A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis and write the meaning of the text and it can be accepted by academia? 

Student B: Well not really...I mean you should have to have some sort of expertise on a subject that you're about to thrust into the world of academia.

Student C: So wait. We should require someone to have a Bachelors degree before they can write about what they think? That doesn't seem right...

Student B: Well I dont think we can limit it so strictly.

Student D: I dont think we should limit it at all! I mean after all, the goal of literary THEORY is to learn to see things from a new perspective. To view a text or a movie or a news story or a political argument from another angle so we can try and figure out where that person is coming from. SO if we limit who can and cannot write, we defeat it's purpose in the first place.

Student A: Yeah I agree. And if i'm looking at A grief observed  from a new historicism lens, If what I'm writing is going to be considered Academic, then I should want to do it the best I can. I should write to the most accurate degree that I'm able to! But to do that, I need to read everything he's written, consider every possible angle, read his thousands of pages of personal letters. Because New Historicism says that the text is a summation of everything C.S. Lewis has ever thought, or felt. It's a product of the culture. Because Lewis was just a sponge. He absorbed everything that was happening around him, and then squeezed it out into a preconceived bowl that christians happen to take communion out of. He focused everything he's ever breathed into a work that had the purpose of speaking to a distinct subject. The beauty of it is, his sponge wasn't a rectangle that only squeezed out soap for adults. Lewis's Sponge was lion shaped when need be. It was whatever shape this reader needed it to be, or that reader needed it to be. Lewis squeezed soap onto everyone about the one thing that everyone needed to hear in the way that they needed to hear it. The cleansing message of the Gospel of Christ. 

To my Literary Criticism professor, whom I greatly respect, appreciate and love:

You want to know why I don't come to this class? Because it's dangerous! I could dedicate my life to these thoughts and attempting to share what knowledge I get here by educating myself in all languages, majors, minors, all schools of knowledge, so I can liberate all of freaking humanity into the light of Literary Theory where we ask different questions, analyze from a different perspective so we can relate to each other. So we can love one another the way God has called us to love one another. Selflessly. How do we love in a way that's truly selfless? Empathy. How do we empathize? By understanding! How do we understand? By being able to recognize; via literary theory. 

And as a young, vibrant, passionate christian It is my duty to speak love to the world. To create love with my words for everyone. By being able to speak to their heart. Whether it's a French engineer or a spanish code writer or a welder from Ohio or a single mother in Houston, I want to be able to speak their language.

I cant do it all. Only God can.

That's why I don't come to this class. I'm scared of the fire it's going to cause In me. The fire to learn all to speak to all about what all need to hear; the gospel. And I end up going through this process of realizing these things and at the end of a day of passionate writing and fevorishly searching for answers and franticly learning everything I can while there is still time to access all of this knowledge I realize that I CAN KNOW ALL if i just want to know all and I do! SO I TRY AND I TRY AND I fail... because in the glory that I was pursuing I forgot to write a fictitious Memorandum for technical writing or my midterm in communication ethics. I realize I cant do it all, I realize I haven't done any my other homework. And after the dust from all the books that I tore through falls, and I realize that i'm surrounded by people whom I owe mundane assignments. I realized that in my pursuit to liberate all, i've failed to meet my obligations as a student. I've failed. And I just want to go fishing. 

Empty

I love the cold and hard dark rectangle. I can make it. Like a mirror,
I make it more alive. Be blonde. Be brunette. Be white. Be fun. Be serious. Be passionate.
Be indifferent. This desire in this moment.
Many moments. Many desires. It becomes warmer. More alive. More real,
It thinks! We're connected. It's warmer. I'm warmer. It's alive. More moments. More desires.
More thinking. Warmer. More real,
Excitement. More. More. I love you,
Eureka!! Euphoria!!!

Click.

Cold.

Dark.


Alone.


Ephesians 4:18-19 "They are darkened in their understanding and separated form the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust fore more."

Hope.

Colossians 1:22 "But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation."

Ambire

With feet all but shoed.

Fingers. cold. the sun still dark

Stars glimmer not this night.

Driven from doors with feet all but shoed.

Twisted. spun. warped. misconstrued.

Incessantly shallow people lost in the gray,

Once i am the pale, the evil prevail.

Once i am the bright, a light, contrite.

Wind brisk of drear, and warm in may.

And my heart has whispered to long with out you.

A tired ticker that has ticked one too many lonely 

gaps

Who are you? why do you evade me?

i'm trying to make good of why God made me.

A warrior, a fighter. a teacher, a writer.

A lover of the one who mothers our own.

i am everything. i am nothing.

What, oh God, will you have me be?

Why will you not show me, set me free?

Fingers. cold. the sun still dark

Stars glimmer not this night.

Driven from doors with feet all but shoed.

Twisted. spun. warped. misconstrued.

Omni

I see you in the sunrise, I see you in the sky, I see you in faces, especially in the eyes, I feel you in the wind, I feel you on my skin, I feel you all around, It’s you I have found.

I hear you in my thoughts, you are in my head, I hear you in my prayers, the ones from my bed, You overwhelm my senses; towards you I have no defenses, You fulfill my needs, please don’t ever leave!

Thank you, Father.

As a Christian, should I be worried about America and the direction it's heading?

Here's a link to the article in the picture. It's a good read from Purelifeministeries. And i'll echo Jon's statement, "God knows what he is doing."

Here's some of my thoughts on the issue:

I believe (and think most would agree) that as christians we are called to live for a higher purpose. But what purpose are we actually living for? If we look at our actions, what are we actually doing? Jesus calls us to focus on the everlasting, not the worldly. We're commanded to 1) love God above all else, trust that he is our omnipotent & benevolent creator and 2) to love the people we find ourselves surrounded by.

What i'm saying is, as christians we shouldn't really be worried about the direction this country is headed. Sure it has served our mission, as Christians, well before. But we are not the same America. It's changed. We are no longer a Christian nation. And our fate, as God's people, is not fused to the sinking of this American nation. It's fused to God and his love for us. On top of that, we need to change our frantic perspective to one that recognizes that it is times like these when Christianity starts to shine. All we need to do is look at history.

How was CHRISTianity conceived? The persecution of Jesus. How did it spread in Rome? The persecution of christians. Were the Christians in Rome at that time concerned with the overwhelming sin of that nation? Yes, but did it stop them from sharing the love of Christ? Nope! Did they just give in and assimilate themselves to the system, hoping they could live comfortable lives and at the same time still living as Jesus did? Absolutely not!

So why have we? 

Let the government try and persecute us. Bring it on! It will weed out those who claim Christianity and those who live Christ as their savior. If we stop sinking to this petty, narrow, shallow political argument, where we engage in tearing one another down so that we can attempt to preserve the "greatness of America" and focus on actually living selflessly for our neighbor, that would actually be productive. I just think we've placed American ideology, and the materialistic comfort that it provides us on a pedestal, and we use God and Christianity to justify our fight. Kinda backwards...

We are the Church. We are not America. We may be identified as Americans because of our Geopolitical location. But we are not Americans. We are God's people. Not America's people. Not this
America and what it stands for. But God, and what he lives for; Love.

soooo

Lets stop claiming with our mouths and start proving with our actions. That doesn't mean go sit in church. That means be the church. That doesn't mean go hum the hymns, amen the preacher and call it good. GO. DO. Act on your convictions! Go be someone's friend. Go talk to someone. Go hangout with someone. It's not the healthy that need a doctor, right? It doesn't take a church funded trip to Ghana. All it takes is a walk down the street.

God is in control. Not us. Stop the petty quarreling. It's only causing division. Go smile at someone, and mean it.
________________________________________________________________________

Potential questions this could raise/Potential future posts:

What does this mean for me and my dream of being a Navy SEAL?
Is fighting for this country what I'm called to do?
What role does war play?

Philosophical Thoughts

Philosophical Thoughts

I. What is sorrow?

II. Why do we suffer?

III. Value of purpose?

IV. Gratefulness?

V. Love 

I. What is sorrow?

My grandmother, Patricia Brogdon, was readmitted to the hospital tonight. Her heart cannot keep a steady beat. It beats irregularly. “Her heart is sick,” we tell her grandchildren. She was readmitted tonight after being released just a week or two ago. That time, the doctors proceeded to remedy this cardiac abnormality by causing her to go unconscious; causing her heart to stop, and then jolting her heart, and her, back to life.

         
As I recall this event in my mind I feel sadness. As I meticulously choose the words to express this event, in an attempt to share this emotion that I am seemingly ensconced within, I hope you as the reader, are able to empathize with it. So that we can explore this question together; what is sorrow? why is there suffering?

What is sorrow? It’s a feeling. It’s an emotion. It’s something that I know I can feel inside, but have trouble communicating such a feeling with inadequate adjectives or awkward metaphors. I successfully did so (I hope) in the opening paragraph because I exemplified a “world” that is sorrowful. This borrows from Robert Solomon’s concept of the loveworld. Solomon writes, “Once we see that every emotion defines a world for itself, we can then describe in some detail what that world involves…”

I’ll call the world I used to describe sorrow, sorroworld. The whole idea behind this worldly concept (no pun intended) is that people mutually enter into and create these worlds, which inevitably take on their own self-perpetuating path and identity. My future wife and I, for instance, will be definitely “in love” upon the day of our marriage where we will publicly enter into union together. We will, as two individuals, give ourselves to this loveworld. It will become as much a part of us, as we are a part of it. Our love grows and perpetuates onward because my wife and I are literally what it is made of, and we are living and growing as one. So what does this have to do with sorroworld and suffeing? When something disrupts one of these worlds that we find ourselves a part of, it causes us pain because that world is part of our personal identity, what makes us who we are. It hurts us too.

Now, what is it that hurt me? The thought that my grandmother was in the hospital caused me sorrow, pain and grief. "The mental perception of some fact excites the mental affection called the emotion, and that this latter state of mind gives rise to the bodily expression." Right? William James, who is said to be the greatest American philosopher, would pronounce this way of thinking to be a popular fallacy. His argument is with this popular approach is it's technical definition of our response to a particular event. For example: When a little girl see's a cockroach, she screams and runs, and is thus scared. Being scared should, he argues, be  characterized and identified by the scream and the run. His thesis is, 

The bodily changes [girl screaming] follow directly the perception of the exciting fact [icky bug] and that our feeling [fear] of the same changes as they occur is the emotion. -James

Basically, the perception that we happen to harbor towards a particular observable fact is what determines our reaction, and our reaction is what the emotion is. 

SO

Ultimately, we have a choice. We’re not animals. We’re not enslaved to behave in one particular way to one particular event. As humans, we have volition. We have to power to use our will to determine what will scare us and what will not. What will cause us pain/sorrow and what will not. This, I feel, is a very liberating thought. A sentiment that I think Viktor Frankl would echo. However, merely knowing that we have power to be affected or to not be affected by any part of our current environment doesn't take away from the fact that suffering still occurred. Grandma's heart, weather I choose to let it cause me grief or not, is still causing her medical issues. Why? Why is this suffering even necessary? We can revisit William James to analyze his life and his philosophical insights to help us find an answer.

II. Why do we suffer?

William James was born in 1843 in New York City. He came from an affluent family who placed an extremely high value on education. Williams father was deeply interested in philosophical and theological theories. We can assume then, that he was, in a way, predestined to have a certain proclivity to explore philosophical ideas. But this was not always the case. He didn't come out of the womb ready to be an automatic continuation of his father's life. In regards to philosophy, that is. As the son of his father he was a continuation of his father in that way, I guess. To his fathers discontent, William wanted to be a painter. So he went off to study painting for a year until he got tired of it and went to study chemistry. Bottom line here is, William James was a smart cookie. Now, about his philosophical insights.

James suffered from depression and pessimism. I mention this because when trying to understand a certain concept, it's valuable to understand how a certain person arrived at the conclusion they did. For James he begged the question: Are the morbid minded weak? Are people who are always angry at the world weaklings because they cant handle the cards that they've been dealt? When exploring this theory he took into consideration the life of Johanne Goethe, who said this of his own life,

I will say nothing against the course of my existence. But at bottom, it has been nothing but pain and burden, and I confirm that during the whole of my 75 years, I have not had four weeks of genuine well-being. It is but the perpetual rolling of a rock that must be raised up again forever. - Goethe

Kinda sad right? James thought so too. And he answered this by postulating that the best way to go about life is to be optimistic. Again, something that Viktor Frankl would agree with. This goes back to Volition and the ability to choose how things affect us. But there is still suffering. And James was keenly aware of this. He finally offered this gem of insight: He saw a connection to the depths of one's dispair and the level of appreciation that comes afterwards, after they escaped this permanent state of pessimism were they able to appreciate life all the more because they were so deep in the dumps at one point. They are, in a way reborn. Metaphorical Christian bells are ringing in my head.

Dark is the absence of light. Cold is the absence of heat. We can recognize light because there are dark places in the world. We can recognize peace, because there is suffering. We can recognize love because there is indifference. Without this duality life would be very bland.

So why is there suffering? Because it is necessary to realize the opposite; Good. Good is not good unless we’ve seen bad. Like the gasp of air after fear of drowning. Like caf. pizza after 2 days of fasting. You don't know what you've got 'till it's gone. If there was anyone who knew the meaning of these truths and could offer us an additional & powerful perspective to grant us more insight, it would be none other than Dr. Viktor Frankl.

III. Value of purpose?

Dr. Viktor Frankl is a Psychologist who has given us Logotherapy which deals with helping people find meaning in life. Frankl's book Man's Search For Meaning tells the story of all the atrocities that he and the millions of others went through in the Nazi concentration camps. His survival of unspeakable evils is a testament to the power of knowing what one's purpose is. Not asking how one should live, but why? For Frankl it was love.

 Think back to James and the correlation between how deeply someone suffers & the ammount of appreciation after being liberated. All the death Frankl witnessed. The utter starvation; to the point where people were unrecognizable, breathing collections of bones. Being put to work out in the 4-degree-winter-woods, shoveling with loose shoes that would fill with snow. Loose because the only way they would fit his swollen feet were to be completely untied. It was in these conditions that Frankl begins to think, not of how sorry he is for himself, not how he wishes he could end it all, but of his wife (who was taken to a different camp), and how much he misses her. How much he loves her. That fact alone blows my mind. How in control of his will he is. Volition. Yet at the same time he is so delusional from exhaustion that he began speaking to his wife in his head and having full fleged conversations with her. He recalls her answering back. Frankl recalls these conversations with his wife were the only thing that kept him alive on some days. Simply knowing that she could be alive and deeply hoping that he could one day be with her again was all he needed to breath on more time. Breath. One more time. Breath. For my wife. Live. for our love. Frankl writes in his book: 

I did not know weather my wife was alive, I had no means of finding out... but at that moment it ceased to matter. There was no need for me to know; nothing could touch the strength of my love, my thoughts, and the image of my beloved...Set me like a seal upon thy heart, love is as strong as death. -Frankl

Side note: These are some of the most powerful & aesthetic words I've ever read. Upon reading them I'm overcome with emotion; immediately infused with joy that such depth of love exists and that such a love can overcome anything, even death! The concept, the story behind it, the whole thing It's nothing less than beautiful!

Okay. Moving on!

Here is an additional quote from a Television interview of Frankl: 

Even in the face of an incurable disease…even then there is the highest meaning of potential…Then we are called upon to bear witness to the unique human potential which is to transmute, to turn, a predicament into an achievement, a human accomplishment. Or to turn tragedy into triumph. -Frankl

This from Man's Search For Meaning

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. -Frankl

 If you get one thing out of reading this, let it be this: We have the power to choose!! Volition!!  

What does all this mean for the sorroworld my Grandmother and I are in? William James would tell me that I just need to change my perception of this event. Robert Solomon would agree, saying that this pain I’m feeling is something to celebrate. It’s a sure indicator that I care very much for my grandmother. That I love her. And when she is in pain, I too, am in pain because we are in this world together. Finally, Mr. Frankl would say that my love for my Grandmother is what makes it worth it. Back to the proverbial phrase, "He who has a why to live can bear with any how." Love is the why. It trumps the how every time. 

“Once an individual’s search for a meaning is successful, it not only renders him happy but also gives him the capability to cope with suffering.” -Frankl 

The loveworld is the meaning that makes this suffering a blessing. That's how I can be optimistic in this situation and in any situation. 


Further thoughts:

IV. Gratefulness 

If that wasn't enough motivation to be grateful and optimistic our current state and wherever we may find ourselves in the future, consider this. 

If this life be not a real fight, in which something is eternally gained for the universe by success, it is no better than a game of private theatricals from which one may withdraw at will. But it feels like a real fight- as if there were something really wild in the universe which we, with our all our idealities and faithfulnesses, are needed to redeem. - William James

Jesus knew his purpose on earth. Jesus who is the son of God, the creator of the universe. God, who crafts butterflies, Krispy Kreme Donuts (thank you!!) and hydrocarbons. Jesus, who is equally divine in nature as his father God, yet as human as you and me and the itch on my back, willingly chose to not let his fear of death stand as a barrier to achieving his purpose on this earth. He was fully aware of the torture that awaited him. It was okay with him. Why? Because he loves us!

Here's the deal: 1). God hates sin, and is completely Holy 2). He will not have anything to do with sin 3). We sin so many times a day that sometimes we don't even know we're sinning.
Jesus knows this. And he knew that sacrificing himself was the only thing that would satisfy God's price for our sin, which is death. Which he gladly payed!

 This is the power and significance of what happened on the cross: In one act of sacrificial love, Jesus absorbed all sin. All of my lust, all of your lies, all of your brothers infidelity, all of your sister's hate, all of your father's drunken rage. Each one of these is punishable by death. But Jesus swallowed it. In one big gulp. He was tortured by the romans centurions, who just happened to be masters in the "art of human suffering." And the best way they knew to torture a man was to crucify him; hang up on a wooden cross via iron spikes driven through each his hands/wrists and one spike through both of his crossed feet. That way every time he needs to breath while he's hanging there he has to use the spike through his feet to push himself up and the spikes through his hands to help the process. To allow his lungs to function.

And Jesus accepted this. Because he loves me so deeply and wants to have a relationship with me so badly. So he did it. He was crucified. And it was finished. The price was paid! We are saved by his Grace! Praise Jesus! Hallelujah!! Amen!

Jesus' purpose is the ultimate purpose. The meaning of meaning. What life is all about. Love. His purpose is to show me how to love someone else. And he preformed the ultimate act of love. He gave his life for me. So he is familiar with this loveworld business. He made it... You know how it feels to be denied love from someone you love? Imagine how much Jesus hurts when I neglect him. All he wants is for me to allow him to be with me. To talk with me. To laugh with me. To cry with me. To bless me in crazy cool ways that I cant even imagine. He wants to be part of my loveworld, and for me to love the people I find myself surrounded by. Because he saved them too. Just like he did me.

V. Love

So if you're still wondering what it is you should do. If you're still wondering what your specific and unique purpose is. I'll just go ahead let tell you. (It's also the secret to living and endlessly happy and fulfilling life so you better take notes!)

Here is is:

Love.

Love. With every ounce of your body
Love. With every word you speak
Love. With every thought you think
Love. With every blink you blink

Among these, my brothers, the greatest is

Love. When you feel as blue as blue can be
Love. When you feel a bit too meek
Love. When you hear someones pain
Love. When you think it's in vain

Love. In this moment

Love. Who you are for who you are
Love. Who you're with for who you're with
Love. Where you've been for where you've been.
Love. Where you are for where you are.

Love.
Love.
Love.
Love.
Love.

 

Touched by an Angel

Touched by an Angel

Maya Angelou 

We, unaccustomed to courage

 exiles in delight

Live coiled in shells of loneliness 

Until love leaves it's high holy temple

and comes into our sight

To liberate us into life.

Love arrives

and in it's train come ecstasies

Old memories of pleasure

and ancient histories of pain.

Yet if we are so bold

love strikes away the chains of fear 

from our souls.

We are weaned form our timidity

in the flush of loves light

we dare be brave

And suddenly we see 

that love costs all we are 

and all we'll ever be

Yet it is only love

which sets us free.

______________________________________________

This is a poem that I've had committed to memory for about a year now. Just locked, loaded and waiting to blast away at the walls around the heart of some young woman. 

I think it is one of the most beautiful poems I've ever read. And yet somehow I feel it's not that popular? I guess it's not like I'm in a writing or poetry club like the Dead Poet Society, or something where works of such magnitude are recited on the daily. Nope. A lot of folks in my generation would rather listen to Lil Tunechi quack about how he and all his niggas are rich as F#*@. 

What ever floats your boat I guess? 

Anyway, the point is that I've been waiting for the "right moment" to drop this poetic bomb on someone but the "right moment" never comes! Whats the deal "right moment"??  Why don't you ever just burst thought the clouds and come down from your high holy temple, and into my sight, to liberate me into life!? 

I know what the problem is. The right moment just doesn't come. I have to make it! 

My main target for this poem, is someone who, I believe, does not grasp the concept in the last stanza. Either that or they grasp it all too well. 

This person has loved another with all their heart, so deeply that they were sure the rest of this life would be spent together. But things didn't work out. And like the poem said, "Love cost all we are" and thats exactly what they gave. When you give someone all you have, and they throw it away, just imagine the pain that must cause. I've seen the pain it has caused. And through seeing it, i've been able to feel just an infinitesimal amount of it. To empathize with it. 

Now, by way of this failed love, their heart is left ravaged by the ancient histories of pain. Like a city on the coast after a tsunami of love. It completely covers and fills every part of you, inside and out, and then withdrawals only to reveal the devastation left behind. The utter destruction. The complete heartbreak.

So how could they be willing to go through this again? Why would any sane person be willing to love like this again? Isn't it in our human nature to learn from our mistakes and not make them again? The heart will now say, "BUILD UP THE WALLS & LEVI'S!!! LET'S NOT LET THIS HAPPEN AGAIN!! NO SIR!!" 

But the words of Angelou ring true:

Yet it is only love

which sets us free.

Let go of your pain. Release the burden of keeping these heavy walls around your heart. Strike away the chains of fear from your soul.

Love again!!

Be free!!!! 

A seaman.

An Excerpt from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness:

"He was a seaman, but he was a wanderer too, while most seamen lead, if one may so express it, a sedentary life. Their minds are of the stay-at-home order, and their home is always with them - the ship; and so is their country - the sea. One ship is very much like another, and the sea is always the same. In the immutability of their surroundings the foreign shores, the foreign faces, the changing immensity of life, the glide past, veiled not by a sense of mystery but by a slightly disdainful ignorance; for there is nothing mysterious to a seaman unless it be the sea itself, which is the mistress of his existence and as inscrutable as Destiny."  

Burning

Proverbs 1:1-7

"The Proverbs of Solomon son of David, King of Israel: for attaining wisdom and discipline; for understanding words of insight; for acquiring a disciplined and prudent life, doing what is right and just and fair; for giving prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the young- let the wise listen and add to their learning, and let the discerning get guidance- for understanding proverbs and parables, the sayings and riddles of the wise. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline."

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It starts like this.


Frustrated with myself. Angry at my laziness. Angry at my indifference. I want to do so many things! I want to learn so many things! I want to be the best at so many things that there is just not enough time to do everything!!!!

I want to:

Be a national champion.
Be able to solve calculus problems in my head.
Be able to program and write code.
Be able to tell you what happened in any year of history.
I want to be a writer with an insane vocabulary.
I want to study all the elements and learn how to use them.
Learn Spanish, and Chinese and German and Russian and French and Italian and Finnish.
How to take apart an engine and rebuild it from scratch.
I want to play the Piano, and the guitar.
Be able to name of every plant and animal I see and tell you all about it.
Name every firearm I see and tell you what it is best used for.
I want to be a leader.
I want to be a Navy SEAL.
I want to be a husband and a father.
I want to be a Missionary.

I have so many things that I want to do that I'm overwhelmed and I come to the conclusion that it's not possible. So I just sit here and do nothing.

Now what the crap is that? How could I be so ambitious one day, and the next be absolutely indifferent?? It's an unending cycle. Like a Phoenix. A cycle that bursts to life, burning with extreme ambition set on conquering the world and ends in disappointing indifference.
Indifference is worse than hate. When you hate, at least you feel something. And you can then act on the emotion for better or worse. But indifference is absent, cold and dark. Cold, the absence of heat. Dark the absence of light. Indifference the absence of concern/action/thought/motivation/love.

This cycle is getting old. And I feel like i'm not getting anywhere. I'm not learning what I want to learn. I'm not achieving. I'm stagnant. Going through these stupid cycles (all this cycle talk I sound like i'm on a period) while i'm waisting precious seconds that could be used to learn something!!

So here I sit, at the end of a cycle, on my throne of ambition. Deteriorating like a leper king, my body is overcome with this voracious disease, dripping with the oil and the putrid stench of indifference, emanating from the pores of my flesh. I inhale. My lungs, being part of my infected body, inadvertently discharge a whisper of indifference. And as I exhale this volatile, indifference-laced gas into the room, my throne ignites.
So here I sit, at the end of a cycle, on my throne of ambition, wreathed in fiery flame. Every breath I take fuels the flames. They're growing hotter and hotter. Burning faster and faster. The torment is unbearable, yet i'm cooking closer and closer to death's glorious escape. Until finally we are but ashes and dust.

I burn with ambition until I burn with ambition.


It ends Like this.
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Lord, forgive me for being such a selfish person. Help me to always remember that I exist to give you glory at all times and places. Help me to truly understand that my willingness to mirror Jesus is the only source of true happiness. All else is vanity. Father, I pray for wisdom. Thank you for the relationship I have with you, made possible through Jesus' payment of my many sins on the cross. Thank you for your never-ending grace. Thank you for your redeeming love.

What is it?

αὐτο καταστροφή

It's two Greek words. The first meaning auto or self. The second meaning catastrophe or destruction. So together they read "Self Destruction." I don't claim to know how to read or write Greek. But I do know how to use google. And if i'm going to start a blog at 1:35am about how in need of grace I am, you can bet it's going to have some deep title.

So that's how the title of this blog came about.

I anticipate I will be posting on this fairly often in the wee hours of the night because thats when I get the greatest urges to write, and thats when I seem very vulnerable to give in to my many "urges."

Paul Tripp wrote a book entitled War of Words  in which he explains the nature of our urges as humans. According to Tripp, they can be traced back to Adam & Eve, specifically to when Eve decided to take a bite of some fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Tripp breaks it down into three basic steps. 1. You visually see what you want which causes you to 2. crave it with your body (covet) which leads to 3. boasting about it with your tongue. I'm not sure about the 3rd part, but based upon most of my life, I can attest to the first two being absolutely true. Whether it's the ding dongs I see walking down the isle at Walmart or the woman wearing very little clothing. I see and I must have.

So thats kind of a pretext as to what will be written around here. You're free to comment and do whatever you want with what you find here. The way I see it, it will only lead to more discussion and thus create more opportunities to use the words God has gifted to us to further His Kingdom.

Peace.