Regression is the Key to Progress (Shadows & Scars: Update 12)

January 15, 2012

6:37pm

Location: IA Boys' Dorm Office; Cicero, IN

Listening to: Bradley Hathaway, A Thousand Angry Panthers

http://www.myspace.com/bradleyhathaway

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More detailed updates coming soon.  For now, some stuff I've been working on:

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She

She moves like the wind

and I am the empty arms

of a winter tree, lacking

even leaves for her to rustle

as she passes through.

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Sometimes You Need To Get A Little Dirt In Your Eyes Before You Can See Clearly

Upstairs, I have retreated

from your arrival.  Blindly,

I saw you, and saw the scales

fall from my eyes.

Now I need a moment to breathe,

to purge the poison from my veins,

ashamed of how easily I was swayed

away from you, against you.

Around the corner,

I hesitate and listen to your voice,

clear and light, piercing through

the walls of my mistakes.

My eyes are open

for the first time again.

All I see is you.

I Wrote This A Few Weeks Ago (Shadows & Scars: Update 11)

Sometime during the beginning of December
Location: Cicero, IN


In my mind, I see much more of this scene than I put into detail below.  Perhaps I will add to it later. Perhaps I will just let your imaginations fill in the gaps.


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http://meemzzz.deviantart.com/gallery/?offset=96#/d1a5ydo

The light is so soft I can hardly bear its gentle touch upon my face. The warmth is ever so inviting. Still, I cannot ignore the chill at my back, here between what has been and what could be.

Despite my discomfort, I don’t turn away. In this beauty, I could lose myself. I could find myself. I could belong. I could…

He places His hand upon my shoulder. I turn to see Him taking in the view as well. I try to read His face, but it is indiscernible. There is always a mystery in His eyes.

He turns to me, a smile of sadness and myrrh upon His face. “Come, we have work to do.”

I nod, but don’t move. I turn to gaze back upon the world just beyond my grasp. Moments slip away uncounted. Finally, I breathe, “Okay.” Still I remain unmoved.

His hand squeezes my shoulder firmly, in a way I take to mean, “If I lead you away, I can lead you back,” but could just as easily mean, “Take your last look, son of Moses.”

Either way, with that hand upon my shoulder, we turn – the warmth slipping from my face – and return to the darkness.

I want to ask Him when we will return, or if we even will. I have so many questions. But His eyes are already set ahead and I know those questions hold no answers yet.

Like A Snack, When What You Really Want Is... (Shadows & Scars: Update 10)

December 7, 2011

11:23 pm
Location: IA Boys Dorm Apt.; Cicero, IN

Listening to: Starflyer 59, Talking Voice Vs. Singing Voice 

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Resentment is the poison we drink ourselves,

but forgiving you feels like a toxin of its own.

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I cut the rope

that keeps me tethered between

you on the bridge above

and the great unknown below.

Except, I do know

what's below: my death

and everything after that.

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Lay your blame on me.

I’ll take it all – deserved

and undeserved – because

I know you hurt

but I can take the pain.

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Why is it so hard for us to do the things we really want in life?  I am unable to move forward. I keep running into walls. I try to progress, but for some reason I remain stuck. I have opportunities but they all seem stalled out. Like some barrier is preventing true meaning.

There are things I need to "deal with." Shadows and scars... including the self-inflicted ones. And even when they seem behind me, still they drag me back when I try to take a step forward. They cannot be ignored. They must be faced.

Imagine: freedom.

What if we could really do what we really want to do?

*For exceptions, see Appendix 16, Section 14 (Shadows & Scars: Update 09)

November 7, 2011
10:05 pm
Location: IA Boys Dorm Apt.; Cicero, IN

Listening to: Emery, The Question 



just a few bits and pieces I was working on tonight...

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Un(limit)ed

In the morning

we are all less grand

with our suits and dresses

back in the closet

or crumpled on the floor.

Already the faces fade,

dissipating with the emotional charge

of such a fine evening.

We pack our bags, relishing

and regretting what could have been.

Perhaps the magic is in the distance,

in the unlimited possibility:

enticing as long as it remains

untested, just beyond our grasp.

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Honesty is the lie

we tell each other

to maintain the illusion

that we have nothing left to hide.

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Stretch me out across the sky,

thin enough to see

what casts this chill

across your face.

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Two Weeks (Shadows & Scars: Update 08)

October 3, 2011
9:25 pm
Location: IA Boys Dorm Apt.; Cicero, IN

Listening to: Dead Poetic, Vices




It is scary how fast time can slip by before I realize that it is gone. Hours, days, months. Years.

It has been two months since I've done any real work on Shadows & Scars. I'm always "just about ready to work on it" again. Something always comes up. Something always will. If I wait for the ideal writing conditions, I may never finish this book.

Why is it so easy for the unimportant things in life to claw their way tot he top of my list of priorities? Not that everything I've been doing is unimportant, but enough of it was.

But this is just a snapshot.

I'm sitting here, trying to remember the last time I came to the end of a year and felt like I hadn't wasted it. The years have been slipping by and I'm always "just about ready to..."

How many years have I wasted? How could I have let them slip away?  I look back and cringe at the long line of months and weeks filled with... with what?

When is the last time I've had two weeks in a row of peaceful sleep? Two weeks in a row where I haven't dreaded the quiet moments before sleep, when honesty speaks clearest?  Two weeks where I've actually lived beyond my ever-hungering emptiness?

Two weeks. Yes, I think that's a good place to start.

Steady as the Seasons (Turning Over New Leaves)

The winds are changing--

A bitter wind blowing in and

Rearranging everything certain.

And with this descent of

Another Autumn

A million leaves have scattered

To mask the familiar.

But in time the winds will be changing--

A fresh wind bringing new

Life to the uncertain.

And with the rise of

A novel Spring

A million leaves will flourish

To paint the unfamiliar.

His.

I find that God often uses normal, everyday things to teach me or remind me of things about Himself or who I am in Christ. Those moments have come after cleaning a kitchen, only to have it immediately dirtied again. They have come watching Kirby learn new things. That reminder may come in the form of a beautiful flower that I feel God sent just to cheer me. Recently, a reminder of who I am because of who God is came at 28,000 feet above the ground.

A few weeks ago I flew down to the panhandle of Florida to visit family. I had the window seat and watched as we began going down the runway, as the airplane lifted, and as we began soaring above the clouds.

Flight amazes me. I know that there is a complicated scientific and mathematical explanation that utilizes the laws of physics that somehow eliminates the mystery of flight, but to me whatever it is that allows a 35,000 lb hunk of people-filled metal to cruise through the air at about 500 mph is a complete mystery.

As I sat in my seat gazing out the small window of the plane, I thought of another mystery that amazes me even more.

I love to sit and watch as the buildings and cars and people become smaller and smaller. I thought about how in this vast universe, I am only a miniscule part. It was a humbling thought. When I am on the ground, I only see a small part of what is going on because I can only see what is immediately around me, but when I am thousands of feet above the ground, I am humbled to know that I am just a small part.

Any self-importance I may have felt vanished as I realized how insignificant I am in this great big universe. On the heels of that thought followed another: God sees the big picture and I am only a small part of His creation. Compared to the Creator of all that I see below and all that I can not see, I am even smaller, less important.

James 4:10 says, "Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up." It is only when we realize how un-important we are and how unworthy we are, that we can recognize how big God is and in doing so appreciate more fully the grace that He has so abundantly poured out.

I sat there for a couple of minutes pondering my smallness in relation to God's bigness when the best, most amazing, biggest paradox of all hit me. The question posed in Psalm 8:4 came to mind, "Oh what is man, that you are mindful of him?" I am not just a germ-sized person in an ant-sized car to God. The God of the Universe, the Alpha and Omega, Elohim, Adonai, Everlasting Father, Desired of All Nations, The Great Shepherd, the High Priest, the Holy One of Israel, the I Am... Lord of all Creation, El-Roi "the strong one who sees" SEES ME. He doesn't see just one of many, He sees me. He knit me in my mother's womb (Psalm 139:13), He has a plan for me (Jeremiah 29:11), and He loves me forever (Jeremiah 31:3).

It's not just that He knows me and sees me in all my insignificance, but He calls me His child because I have chosen to call him my God. And since He's the King that makes me a princess. "See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are." (1 John  3:1) He has given me a crown of glory and honor and has made me a little lower than the angels. (Psalm 8:4)

There is a song by a Casting Crowns called Who Am I.

It says:

Who am I that the Lord of all the earth
Would care to know my name,
Would care to feel my hurt?

Who am I that the Bright and Morning Star
Would choose to light the way
For my ever-wandering heart?

Not because of who I am,
But because of what You've done.
Not because of what I've done,
But because of who You are...

I am a flower quickly fading,
Here today and gone tomorrow,
A wave tossed in the ocean,
A vapor in the wind,
But you hear me when I'm calling,
Lord, you catch me when I'm falling,
And you've told me who I am...
I am Yours.

I am nothing but His, and because of that, I'm pretty special. You can be too.