As time stopped in the stillness
The grass drooped under the morning mist
The world began to hold its breath
Waiting expectantly for what happened next...
So I'm pretty stoked. I started the development stage of a new project today. It's bigger than anything else I've attempted thus far as the Black Knight. It'll take a while for everything to come together and finish up nicely but.....I can't resist. Here's a brief snippet of part of the project.... As time stopped in the stillness The grass drooped under the morning mist The world began to hold its breath Waiting expectantly for what happened next... I'll try to keep you up to date with things as they happen because I'm waiting expectantly for what is going to happen next.
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have you ever read something that you wrote a couple of years ago and realized that it was exactly what you needed to hear today? It's like God prepares us for the tests of life, gives us all the information we need and then we go and forget it all right before we need it.
Praise be to the God who love us enough to never force us into something we can't handle, who always gives us a way out even in the darkest of moments. God, please remind me of the love I once had for You, the wonder of knowing You. Lord, remind me that You are here. Remind me that You have never left, that even before the walls crumbled You gave me everything I needed. Thank You. 1 In the beginning was the Word,
The Word. Words are a form of communication, they express the emotions, colors, pictures, and ideas we have inside. Words are also the only “precise” form of communication: I can say words and make them specific enough that in any context, their meaning stands. Not so with pictures or hugs or eye squints (which are all also forms of communication). Words are also intentional. Rarely do we accidentally say a word when we're just making noises. Words have thought behind them. The Word is God's intimate, specific, precise communication with us, with mankind. It is intentional, it is purposeful communication. And God has planned this communication with man from the beginning. The instant time started God knew the words He would say to man to communicate with man. Wow. God knew how He wanted to talk to you before the heavens and the earth were made. and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. With God, the Word is distinct here. Saying you are with yourself is nonsensical because you can't ever not be with yourself. But at the same time, the Word WAS God. Was, the Word is God, God is the Word. God has manifest Himself fully and entirely, completely and utterly in His communication with us. In a way that we cannot ever understand in this life, the Word is both God entirely and yet distinct from God. The Trinity. One God, three persons. That's as good as I can explain it. God is fully the Word, the Word is fully God. They are one yet they are distinct. (It blows my mind too). 2 He was with God in the beginning. He. A singular masculine pronoun. A pre-shadowing of the main point of John's book. He. In the beginning: it's repeated here. John is emphasizing that The Word has been a part of God's plan since the beginning. The very beginning. Before the heavens and the earth beginning. God has planned His communication with us before we even were, before we even could have been. The Word is purposeful, He is meaningful, He is intentional, The Word is deliberate. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. The Word made all things. We're not getting communication from God that is unaware of us. The Word made us, He holds us together. He is the only reason anything was made at all! The Word can communicate with us because He knows us, because He made us, because He sustains us currently. There is no culture or language barrier here. The Word made us, He knows us better than we know ourselves. He can communicate better with us than we can communicate with ourselves. God's communication is perfect in every sense of the word, He fulfills every meaning of Holy, every meaning of intimate. And The Word does it, He does it all at the same time. 4 In him was life, He has life IN Him. In. Life is a part of His being. The Word is the Word because He has life. It is His nature to have life. He can't not have life. If the Word didn't have life, He wouldn't be the Word but He is the Word, He does have life. and that life was the light of all mankind. The light of all mankind. Despite all our best efforts to hide the light, to diminish its splendor, to banish it from within us, God's communication reveals that we are the bright spot in creation. The Life in the Word is the Light we can reflect. No other part of creation is referenced here. The life isn't the light of the sun, or the moon. Even though the sun and the moon are the lights referenced in creation (stars too) it is not their light that the Word holds. It is the light of men. We, mankind, we are meant to be shining brighter than the stars. We are to outshine the sun. But we hide our light, we push the light away. We're afraid of the light because we are sinful. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. But even the darkness we so readily embrace can not slow the Word down. Our darkness can not stop His life, our light. Imagine thousands of mirror shards floating in the universe. When the light hits them, they will shine. Not with their light, they can't produce light, but with His light giving them life. Mankind, we gave up any claim to the light we had when we chose ourselves over God, when we sinned. But God, in His perfect Wisdom, in His utter intimacy with our deepest secrets has chosen to let us, screwed up, fallen, sinful, cracked, wretched people, reflect His light, reflect The Word. And no matter how hard we try, we can't frustrate God's goal. We can't stop the light from shining, we can't stop mirrors from reflecting that light. Even if we put all the darkness in the universe between the Word and a mirror, the mirror will reflect His light because His light is unstoppable. Because of who God is, we are helpless, we are powerless before Him. What a comfort. 6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. John is a mirror. John reflects the Word's light because the Word's light won't be stopped. John is trying to get the other mirrors to shine with His light as well. But the mirrors turned away from John, they turned away from the Light. They couldn't stop the Light so they pretended it wasn't there, they slandered the Light, they cursed the Word. But that didn't stop the Word, that didn't stop His Light. Nor did it stop John from reflecting the Light, from preaching about the Word. 9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. The Light, the Word. That which was with God in the beginning. That which was God and is God. Coming into the world. God walking amongst man. Perfection incarnate walking the sinful streets. A miracle so great, so vast...there is no other miracle like it. There are other miracles we can't understand but none of them are like this one. God on earth. Unheard of, impossible...except, the Word made everything. The Word gives life to everything. The Word is here intimately already. Whether we recognize the light or not, the Word is with us, always has been with us, and always will be with us. He can't help it. He made us, He sustains us. He has to be with us in a way that goes beyond comprehension. God with man. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. Yet even though the Word sustains us, made us, is the only reason we're alive here today we ignore Him, we don't listen to the Word. We feign ignorance when we come face to face with the Word. We turn our backs on Him, we seek out something smaller than us and dominate over it so that we aren't left feeling vulnerable, naked, and needy before the Word. We flee from the very One who gives us being. We ignore, walk past, pretend we don't know the Word yet He knows us better than we know ourselves. His love truly must be infinite to be so strong when the relationship is so unbalanced. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. His own cast Him out. We are His, we are made by Him, we are made through Him and we shun, hate, spit on, ignore, cast aside, turn on Him. We don't even listen to God's Word, we return it unopened and unappreciated. The One who knows us better than anyone and we prefer to sit in the dark, ignorant. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God-- The Word is patient, the Word is kind. The Word forgives. For to those who didn't cast Him out, to those who welcome Him into their lives, He gives a gift beyond all description. Children of God. Claimed, named, made by God Himself. Children. Full heirs. Children. Loved, cherished. Loved to the point of death, cherished beyond words. 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. How is this? Not by anything we can understand and certainly not by anything we can do. The mirrors are helpless, but the Light is limitless in power, abounding in love, and infinite in mercy and grace. But the mirrors are now family to the Light. Adopted and purchased, made and sustained. 14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. The Word. God's communication with us. God's perfect, direct, intentional, meaningful, precise communication with us is flesh. God in the flesh. God incarnate. The sustainer of the universe walking shoulder to shoulder with the sustained. God's message to us is too important to be lost in the cosmos, too intimate to be delivered by angels. When God wants to communicate with us, He literally sits us down and looks us in the eye. Face to face. Man to man. He speaks our language, He meets us where we're at. There is no room for the message to be lost in translation, no chance of us misunderstanding. God's Word, His precise message whose meaning never changes, is in the flesh. He is fully God, He is with God, and He is man. He is the perfect communication for an imperfect, stubborn, darkened people. Unstoppable, all powerful, gentle, humble, meek. That's my God. I am protective by nature. I’ve been called (and sometimes correctly so) over-protective. I get it. But answer me this before you judge me. If you see someone, a beautiful young lady who is like your sister, crying…what is your first reaction? I have two that hit nearly simultaneously: comfort her and go find whoever did this to her. Am I wrong in those reactions? Is that over-protective? I don’t know, part of me is telling me that I ought to let her fight her own battles. We’re not in a relationship, we’re just friends. But another part of me whispers that leaving her alone isn’t right. Abandoning responsibility is something that boys do, not something that men do. So I reached out my hand and let her know she wasn’t alone. But I still feel restless. There’s this knot of frustration that anyone – boy or girl – would dare hurt my sister, would dare abandon their friendship with her in the bitterness (do they even realize how lucky they are/were to be friends with her?). Praise be for a God who understand my frustrations and more importantly, a living God who is with her, who loves her way more than I could. “’Vengeance is mine, I will repay’ says the Lord.”
God, help me to let go. Help me let go of my frustrations. Lord, You talk of a peace that surpasses understanding, a peace that knows no bounds. Right now, I feel anger, resentment, and pain. I believe with all my heart that I’m feeling those for the right reasons but God, those feelings are getting between us. Please, take them away. Remind me that strength, that power is not just acting out but it is reigning in our base desires as well. Teach me to desire peace above war, to cherish love above hate, to seek forgiveness instead of anger. Jesus, You lived among sinners, among humans – the dirt of the earth and yet You loved them in their sin. You have a love for me that is more powerful than anything else in the universe, Jesus please, help me to have a sliver of that to extend to others. Take away this bitter, untrusting heart that I’ve held onto for far too long God. Take my heart away, bury it under the ocean floor. In its place God, set a light burning with holy fear, set a candle on a hill to shine its light into my life and then Lord, let me ooze that light out to those around me. Overpower me with Your grace, with Your love so that I have no choice but to affect those around me by merely overflowing God. I can’t love others, I can’t forgive others enough without You. God, I don’t want to just love them, just forgive them enough. May I forgive them the way that You forgave me – and for that to happen God, I need You. I need you to overpower me, to erase me and draw in my place the person You want me to be, the person I keep running from. May I be forever less and may You increase forever more. there are some days that can only be summed up in song(s)... For a class assignment we were asked to write 500 words or less about what our word means to us. Did our word mean enough to us to keep it at any cost/ Are Little white lies ok? I struggled to find what to write; prose couldn't convey the meaning I wanted this paper to carry. So I decided to incorporate one of my poems that I had written a while back about a specific situation. So without further ado, here's the paper I wrote about what my word means to me.
What does my word mean to me? I struggle to find the right words to express what my word means. While trying to come up with the words to describe what my word means to me I kept thinking of John Proctor’s line in The Crucible where he laments having to give up his name to save his life: Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!” Even a quote like that doesn’t quite sum it up for me though. Yes, I value my name but even if my name changes, I am still bound to my word. Promises aren’t limited to only a name, only a place, only a time; promises transcend who we were when we made them, surpass the circumstances surrounding their birth. Promises last forever. If you’ll allow me, I’d like to tell a brief story as an introduction for a few lines of poetry that are as close as I can come to fully expressing what my word means to me. I made a promise to a precious girl on June 11, 2010. Sadly, we’ve stopped talking to each other and have split ways almost entirely. When I made that promise, I had no idea what would happen a month later, let alone a year later. But here I am, a few months shy of two years later having kept my promise to her to the best of my ability. It was a foolish promise, a rash promise, a promise made in the emotion of the moment but a promise is a promise. Somehow, this poem expresses my meaning better than my prose could ever hope for. Promises The Black Knight I pulled her close And held her there As her heartbeat echoed The question in the air She looked up at me With those eyes of freckled blue In that moment crystal clear I said “This I promise you.” How was I to know What would happen down the road? Looking back I couldn’t see What would happen right in front of me In my ignorance I gave A piece of my heart away In my folly I have found The world keeps spinning round And, confused, looks at me A fool to be pitied If only I could show the world Or better yet that beautiful girl The beauty in the dagger The honor in the danger The final scene has been set A promise made is a promise kept Words must be more than empty lies Half-truths, falsehoods, or alibis And though my folly I lament A promise fulfilled is a life well spent. My blog is my personal outlet to vent my feelings, disappointments, and random bursts of inspiration or frustration. And every time I read the last post I actually posted...I think of all the posts that didn't make it. All the words that I wanted to say that have been bottled up inside. I'm not sure when they'll come out. I hope some of them never come out. But there they are, sitting quietly, biding their time, lost in the depths of my unconsciousness. And so here's to you, all those words I've hid inside. Here's to all the hateful comments I thankfully bit back and to all the encouraging words that I sadly wasn't strong enough to say. Here's to the pain I covered and the joy I suppressed, to the memories I never shared and the memories I missed making.
Tonight I watched the movie Courageous for the first time. If you haven't seen it, go see it. Also, check out Extreme Days and The Second Chance.
I've been struggling with a lot in my life lately. In a lot of ways, I've "let go of the wheel." Daily, I look in the mirror and ask myself what am I doing? It;s so easy to only focus on my mistakes. I could spend the rest of this blog listing everything I've done wrong just in the past week but that's not the point. The point is I know who can fix what I've done wrong. I know who holds the future and is never surprised by how badly I mess up. That's what matters. God matters. No one else even comes close. I'm not married, not even dating. I don't have a child even. But when and if God blesses me with those relationships (in the right order) I pray that He will teach me to love Him even more than I love my wife, more than I love my sons, my daughters. That's courage. I pray that even now, God would teach me to love Him more than I hate my mistakes. That takes courage. It takes courage to stand out on a limb and fall head over heels in love with God when every time you look in the mirror you see all your mistakes staring back at you. Right now, I'm not courageous. Not even close. It's something I have to work on. If I don't...well, I've seen the darker side of life. Not the darkest, but dark enough to know what kind of abusive thug I could be. So as I lie here in bed, typing this into my computer screen, I'd like to ask for your prayers. God is listening. And I need His help. God, I'm not sure what to say. You've gifted me with words, but words fail me now. How appropriate that my strength is inadequate. It always is. I need You. You've seen where I've walked the past 20 months; no thought has been hidden from You. Yet You're still here. You have left me yet. I don't understand it God. But thank You. Lord, I pray that You would give me the strength to let go. To let go of my flaws, my failings, let go of the past. Teach me what You would have me learn and then give me the peace that surpasses all understanding. I am restless Lord, I need Your peace. God, I pray that You would teach me to love You again. I once did, Lord, I knew where my place was. I've lost sight of that now because I've lost sight of You. I became more concerned with being the hero than being Yours, with saving the day instead of stopping to pray. Even as I write this, I feel the want to turn it into a poem to show off instead of making it heartfelt and honest. God, I need You. You are my hope, give me the courage I need to hope, the courage I need to let go of myself and grab fully on to You Lord. Teach me, lead me, guide me for Your sake God. I need you. I have a confession to make. I don't listen to people who edit my writing. I'll hear them out, sure, but I won't listen. I like my style of writing. It's different. I know. I start sentences with "but." I know that you're not supposed to do that. But I do it anyway. I write long sentences - these huge constructs of words that include unnecesary detail and go on forever. I state my point different ways in the same sentence even. I put commas where I pause when speaking, not where it's grammitically correct. I laugh when people say I have style errors: if it's my style and I wrote it, how is it an error? I write like I'm speaking, I write the words taht I would say if we were face to face (and I had the time to organize my thoughts completely while talking about one subject in a flowing conversation that's really more of a monologue). And one thing I've learned in all my writing classes...I don't care what others think. Yes, there are people who I ask to edit my papers but I don't ask out of a want for style advice; I ask out of a want for their ideas. The people I ask to edit are people who I beleive have ideas better than mine, people who can turn a phrase beautifully and make my feeble attempts to mimc that fall on their face. Those are the people who I want to edit my papers. They understand me because they know me. They know that the more they disect my writing, the less likely I am to change it.
And that is the reason I write poetry. Well, one of the reasons anyways. It's rare for someone to criticize art and if they do, well, we'll chalk it up to a difference in taste. After all, some people love rap, others only listen to country. To each his own. Why are tattoos so popular?
I don't understand it at all; perhaps you could help me. Why would anyone in their right mind want to put a permanent image on their skin that will age faster than they do? It's permanent, you can't take it off. Very few things in this life ought to be permanent - faith, marriage, and promises are the only ones that I can think of. So if faith is permanent why do I protest getting a cross or a fish or what have you as a tattoo? Well, the cross, the fish is just a symbol. Symbols can be powerful, I agree but as a Christian I have more than just a symbol. Bruce Wayne talks about how a man is corruptible, how a man is fallible and only a symbol can withstand the test of time. Only a symbol can represent hope because no man is perfect. I agree with Master Wayne...almost. He's right about all but one human. And I follow Jesus Christ -fully God and fully human. The perfect, infallible symbol of hope that no other man could ever be. I don't need a symbol to represent Christ's power, to remind me of what He stands for because all I have to do is look to Him, open up my heart and speak with the God of the universe to be reminded of His perfection, of the hope that He offers through faith. Marriage then, is marriage a reason to get a tattoo? Well, first off, if your faith is no reason to get a tattoo then marriage most certainly isn’t either. But let me continue anyways. Marriage isn’t made better by inscribing someone’s name in a heart on your arm. Marriage is made better by tripping yourself constantly so that you keep falling in love with your spouse. Is your love somehow less because you aren’t always wearing their name? And really, does their name define them? I’ve known multiple Emily’s, numerous Rachel’s, a couple of Lauren’s….all with the same name but each so different from each other. The name is not the person. And what would mean more anyways, a tattoo declaring their love for you or them living out their love for you in such a way that anyone who knows them or even meets them knows they love you. Also, what means more- wearing a tattoo you can’t remove or choosing to wear a ring given to them by their spouse that they can take off? I’m not sure about you, but from what I know of love, it’s a choice. And if they daily choose to wear that ring, then they can daily choose to love me even more. I’ll take that choice. As for promises….well, let’s see, if faith and marriage aren’t reasons for a attoo, you can guess how I feel about promises. Bingo: faith is the most important promise you can make to the most important Person in your life. Marriage is second on both accounts. If one and two aren’t even worth a tattoo, then how could three, four, five, ten, twenty, or one million even be in consideration? And I go back to my earlier point, do you want someone to keep a promise because they’re forced to or because they choose to? So why do people get tattoos? I guess I could also ask why people smoke, why Nascar is a sport, and what goes on in the mind of females? All legitimate questions but with answers I fear I’ll never understand. "You're a hopeless romantic who just realized that romance is hopeless" - Enchanted.
This line is from one of the deleted scenes in Enchanted (which is a very clever movie if I may say so myself). I might have the phrasing a little wrong here and there but the general meaning is dead on. And boy does it describe me. I'm scared to death of never finding someone to love and be loved in return and I'm scared out of my wits by the mere thought of getting married and sharing my life with someone. Every time I find a girl I convince myself she's the one and then wake up a few weeks later with my heart broken in my chest and the taste of disappointment in my mouth. Hopeless romantic who's realizing that romance is hopeless. In other romantic musings....I heard something the other day that's stuck with me like a bandaid on a raw wound: "When you break up with someone, it shouldn't be the first time they hear about it." Wow. Put that up there with "No surprises" in the running for best relationship advice I've heard. These two are opposite sides of the same coin. Relationships are about two people who are learning to think with one mind. To do that you have to communicate. Have to. Have to, have to. No other way around it. You have to communicate. Even when it's awkward, especially when it's not comfortable. You have to let them in, let them know what's going on in your mind. If you aren't willing to let them in, why lead them on? Why pursue the relationship? What goal do you have in mind by being closed off to them? What purpose does it serve other than a salve on your feelings and a bit of pride in your ego that someone loves you. If you love them, you'd let them in and share. If you aren't willing to share then all you're doing is twisting the knife that you buried deep into their back the first time you said yes. |
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