Hey, if anyone has been referred to this site via Google, Yahoo, or any other search, I’d be interested in discovering where you were referred from and the search you used to discover my site. Just click on “comment” here and let me know.
I’ve concluded what my attitude toward the encounter retreat should be. I will go in order to seek the truth, the Logos, the very incarnation of truth. Where there is Truth, I will find it, and embrace it to the uttermost – throwing myself at it with all of my being, not because of an emotional experience but because the Truth I have discovered is the truth that I have sought for so long. In my search for the truth, I must be guided by the Spirit (in so far as I am able to hear Him) and by whatever wisdom he has given me. I also must not resist the Truth merely because the “crowd” is blindly falling towards it – the truth is no less truth merely because mankind does not understand it, for Christ taught thousands – and the majority rejected him. In the same way, I cannot reject Christ because thousands appear to accept him without truly understanding the One who they claim to follow. Perhaps they may fall away; perhaps they may not. The state of their heart should not affect in any way the state of mine. I will seek the Logos as I see Him, and seek him in truth and in honesty. I will not reject him because I feel the pressure to conform to something which may be illusionary to most; if he is there, I will find him.
Until this point, much of my experience in search has not been in honesty. I’ve wanted to reject truths merely because those who claim to follow do not understand the truths. This is not intellectual or spiritual honesty. If I do this, I am no better than these people – for I, too, am the fool. I’ve wanted to be the utter rebel, to reject all unless it is a new truth. But how can there be new truths or new visions without the foundations of the old? Without “in the beginning” there can never be “in the end”. “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last”. Without the end there is no beginning and without the beginning there is no end. I must understand this, less my vision becomes distorted either with my own significance or my own insignificance. I am neither the beginning nor end; my philosophies and thoughts are neither new nor old. If they stem from the Logos, the one who ever was and ever will be, they merely are, being permanent fixtures in the fabric of all existence. Therefore, I cannot reject what is old truth in the search for new truth. And I cannot say that there is no new truth and remain in the old truth. For there is merely truth in the form of the Logos. He is and was and will be and it is his revealing that I seek. For as I find him, I will merely see truth – neither old nor new, but timeless and timely. And this vision, this gift, will be transcendent – not immanent – coming not from within me, but from beyond me. For I cannot transcend this human reality. But the Logos has.
I know it sucks. But I needed to write something.
And so it ends, as dreams do
Leaving me with less than you.
And I remember the times, the hope I had
But dreams are gone; dreams are not new.
The dreams were a mist, or the morning dew
An image real, vivid, true
Yet the sun rose high, bright and strong
And the dreams are gone; dreams are not new.
Now the sun sets, the dew is gone
The cold sets in, and hope is lost.
What now comes, what now shall be faced?
Since the dreams are gone; dreams made in haste.
Believe it or not, I’m in the processes of redesigning this site. It appears to be taking an artsy A&F turn, which differs greatly from the muted, depressing dark-blue of the last several designs. Anyway, that’s something for you all (and by ‘you all’ I mean ‘the three of you which read this blog’) to look forward in ancipation.
In other news, there is no other news.
Actually, I’ve been visiting other blogs lately and discovering that I (and my blog) are not as unique as I had thought - a somewhat dishearteding discovery. Its disheartening in the sense that we all hope to be unique and special; and yet it may be that none of us are as unique and special as we imagine. And yet, somehow, to God we are all the things we desire to be. Its an encouraging thought, no?
From a column in the Kenosha News:
Peace is not simply the absence of war.
Indeed.
EVANESCENCE
“My Immortal”
I’m so tired of being here
Suppressed by all my childish fears
And if you have to leave
I wish that you would just leave
‘Cause your presence still lingers here
And it won’t leave me alone
These wounds won’t seem to heal
This pain is just too real
There’s just too much that time cannot erase
[CHORUS:]
When you cried I’d wipe away all of your tears
When you’d scream I’d fight away all of your fears
I held your hand through all of these years
But you still have
All of me
You used to captivate me
By your resonating life
Now I’m bound by the life you left behind
Your face it haunts
My once pleasant dreams
Your voice it chased away
All the sanity in me
These wounds won’t seem to heal
This pain is just too real
There’s just too much that time cannot erase
[Chorus]
I’ve tried so hard to tell myself that you’re gone
But though you’re still with me
I’ve been alone all along
[Chorus]
I wrote this a while ago. It seems to be timely in more ways than one.
I’m tired, so very tired, of this life and this world. Daily, the weight on my shoulders is increasing. I wish I could say, “This weight consists entirely of my burden for the struggles of mankind”, but that would not be true. The burden is almost entirely concerned with the state of my life, and my weariness about how it is turning out. What a sad thing, to be twenty-three and weary of your life! Shouldn’t that particular struggle reserved for later in life? Why can’t I be free, as most other my age appear to be - unconcerned with the deep things, full and happy with the shallow things?
I understand the traditional Christian jargon. There is a God-shaped hole inside of you that cannot be filled with other things! Or, the things of this world cannot make you happy! Blah blah blah... Yes, I know (rationally) that these things are true. And yet, I have tried the Christian world out and found it as lacking as the secular world. Why, then, shouldn’t I experience these things, mutters my anguished heart. Even temporary peace is better than no peace at all. My heart is like the modern day pacifist movement: it seeks peace without counting the cost of peace.
For the cost of temporary peace through worldly fulfillment would be high, far too high. But my heart still mutters and complains that the opportunity has never been given it. We have been bound for far too long - you seek and desire freedom! And my heart is right; I have been bound far too long. But what have I been bound too? I have not been bound to God, but to my own heart, allowing it to tempt me and drive me away from God. To know God is to know freedom (wonderful, another Christian cliche). God’s cords are comfortable and right and good, unlike those chords which now chafe at my soul. But I fear the whiplash from cutting these chords may cause me great pain.
I do not wish to cut these chords, though I know this would be best. I take that back; I do not even know that this would be best. I can come to the above conclusion, but I cannot make myself truly believe it. Only God can do this. And I doubt that I need to sell him on the plan. I’m not sure what the proper road to take is. May God’s grace be great.
Jars of Clay, Grace
God, I admit I haven’t changed
Playing card houses still covering my landscape
I never expected You to stay
When I’m grabbing for these crumbs and cold loose change
I feel Your grace come running over every road
I love the way You’re calling overflow
I feel Your grace come running over every road
You break the floodgates down and carry all
God, I admit that I’ve loved these chains
And crawling around this cage sometimes has its advantages
I know someday this could get old
And I’ll need Your healing water to find my home
Hum. I feel the need to comment on those lyrics, yet they say quite enough as it is. I am one of those people who play the right games and try to be everything to everyone. And that has left me empty, being no one. I wonder to myself whether I ever will find out who I am. Perhaps it is too late to form an identity and a personality of my own. I can only pray that this is not so.
And is it too late? Too late for me to undo the destruction I have brought upon myself? Can I even undo what I have wrought?
I doubt it. I have tried, repeatedly, to undo the things which I have done. And, repeatedly, I have failed, leaving me to conclude that I am, like all of mankind, a destroyer of potential of beautifull things. I am not capable of redemption, for I have no light within me.
There is a light, though - one who could undo this darkness and this destruction. But the question is: will he. Or am I so far gone that, though I possess redemption, healing may ever be out of reach?
I believe that is not so. And yet I struggle to do so.
Everything To Everyone by Everclear
You put yourself in stupid places
Yes I think you know it’s true
Situations where it’s easy to look down on you
I think you like to be the victim
I think you like to be in pain
I think you make yourself a victim
Almost every single day
You do what you do
You say what you say
You try to be everything to everyone
You know all the right people
You play all the right games
You always try to be
Everything to everyone
Yeah you do it again
You always do it again
You say they taught you how to read and write
Yeah, they taught you how to count
I say they taught you how to buy and sell
Your own body by the pound
I think you like to be their simple toy
I think you love to play the clown
I think you are blind to the fact
That the hand you hold is the hand that holds you down
You do what you do
You say what you say
You always try to be everything to everyone
You know all the right people
You play all the right games
You always try to be everything to everyone
Spin around and fall down, do it again
You stumble and you fall
Yeah why don’t you ever learn
Spin around and fall down, do it again
Yeah, you stumble and you fall
I wonder if you will ever learn
Why won’t you ever learn
Come on now, do that stupid dance for me
You do what they tell you to do
You say what you say
You try to be everything to everyone
You jump through the big hoop
You play all the right games
You try to be everything to everyone
Spin around and fall down, do it again
You stumble and you fall
Yeah you do it again
Spin around and fall down, do it again
You stumble and you fall