What Stars are Made of

I saw this space where things were new
The walls glowed white, the brightest hue
The faintest smell
A growing light
An overwhelming feeling, that things would be alright
I saw them watching the sky in awe
The stars descended, I watched them fall
The light touched everything
Every single thing in sight
It all turned new, in the bright white light
The songs grew louder
The music of love
We received the gift, it descended from above
The stars have always been alight with love
Bursting forth to extinguish the night
With their bright white, burning, spinning, fantastic light

7.7.11

6.27.11

Somewhere in 2009

All the days

They weep and wane

None the same

No more the sane

Than those who blame

The blowing winds

The Unanticipated Clearing

You’re walking through the forest one day when suddenly, it begins to rain…So you speed up your pace, intent on the path in front of you, aware that nightfall is just around the corner. You must hurry, for you don’t want to be stuck overnight with the treacherous unknowns of a stormy forest.

However, you find that your path is not as clear or well-worn as you thought. In fact, it’s overgrown in some parts— practically non-existent in others. You press on. You find your feet sliding in the slippery mud here and there, but manage to catch yourself at the very last minute, preventing a fall.

The rain continues on, pouring for minutes on end. Until it finally lets up for a bit. You know it is only a matter of time though. The sky is still gray, its heavy clouds looming low, dangerously full overhead. You smell the thick, fresh scent of dirt and moisture. Hear the melody of the steadily falling rain on the leaves of the trees and the solid of the ground, as it falls. Lightening darts across the moody canvas of the sky, the booming tune of life’s moan thundering in the background. You are thoughtful. Still you are moving.

You press on.

You leap over wide puddles, barely just making the landing. You trip over unseen shrubs and branches, scratching yourself on the sharp twigs jutting out as you make your way through the darkening forest. Your speed is intentional. Time is passing, fleeing. You thought you would’ve been out by now. You’re not, and you aren’t even sure how much longer it’ll be until you reach it.

You press on.

Praying in your head as you move, silent stirrings in your heart reverberate through the forest, echoing off of misshapen trees and listening creatures. The vibrato sounds are both absorbed and returned. Unsearchable, beady eyes stare out at your determined figure from shrouded hiding places, endless in possibility and form.

You press on.

Moving, moving, moving…When abruptly and without warning, you see it. Just a few more feet now…The clearing.

Leaning forward with your hands on your knees, you gasp for breath as your racing heart speeds towards a more sustainable rhythm. You exhale a sigh of relief, and smile.

You realize that you’ve made it past your obstacles, grateful for a moment of clarity about your surroundings…Knowing full well that this isn’t your destination, and there will be more unpredictable terrain ahead.

But you will press on. And on.

And on.

Are You Dead or Just Sleeping?

What happens to our childlike sense of wonder as we get older? Where is our faith like a child?

A friend and I were talking this past week, and the desire for childlike faith to be ever-present, as a pursuit, was mentioned.

It takes real effort sometimes, you know? To keep believing. To keep hoping against the odds.

The odds! There’s the rub. That is where we get jaded. The thing is, I happen to think it’s because waaay too many people accept the mentality: “that’s just the way things are.” I have a hard time with this, because my response is: “Really? Who says?”

I have always firmly believed in writing your own story. I am blessed in that for whatever reason, I am able to maintain my own point of view. I see the world through MY eyes. Often times maintaining that sense of wonder, because I don’t understand how anyone could not be mystified by the vastness of it all. The complexity. The challenge.

Conversely, I am also told that I am too idealistic. Or if I question things or position that they should be different, I am met with some kind of “in an ideal world” type of statement.

Well, fine- DUH. The catch is usually getting people on the same page, isn’t it? Sure, we all want these magical realities to materialize into truth- but we are just not all willing to put in the effort required to make it. And I cannot understand why not. Why don’t people believe more, have a little faith?

I know just as well as anyone that this world and the creatures in it disappoint, and we’re all just trying to figure it out. But why can’t we hope for more? Why can’t we hope coupled with action?

We only get one shot at life. One time. One chance. All the time I think about how I wish people would feel less scared about venturing out of their comfort zone and taking a risk. Doesn’t finding out if it’s worth it, how the story will unravel, account for anything? Not to mention the sheer rush of mustering up your courage to take action and DO something, whatever it is. There is value in being brave enough to try…and to try and try and try— and keep trying, rather than giving up. Or never having the audacity to put yourself out there in the first place.

I guess I just think that it really should matter. That maximizing our experiences, our connections, our lives- are worth it… While we still have them. Knowing that we truly do possess the power to change things and institute new ways of doing. Simple things like, who cares about if this is the way it is or has been: how do we WANT things to be? What are we going to do about it? What are we willing to do? What will we fight for?

Daydream Reality

I sigh

My eyes gazing up at that big, majestic sky

My head is held high, a smile on my face

My body is here, but I’m somewhere—

Someday

My mind is out there

Where possibility knows no bound

Where imagination is flourishing, and idealism is ever found

I am free in that other world

Where there’s just me and passing dreams

I’m going to get there, gonna bring it home

This daydream reality

Just you wait and see

Missing those Modern Days

For the modern has passed, and what remains now is stale.

As time goes by, we live passively immersed in a culture with an ever-growing identity named distraction. An attention-deficient epidemic continues to spread like wildfire, because people want to move so fast and invest so little.

The world has gotten smaller, the pace nearly impossible…And where do we recognize life? Does it exist only in the realm of entertainment? Have we succumbed to an era of gratification? What else is there to achieve that will truly fulfill? How can that even be discovered in the midst of such a chaotic space? Or an environment that is by definition insatiable?

OK, so maybe I am honing in on the negative. That’s because I am trying to make a point. Aside from technological or medical advancements, who’s fighting who and the ever-colorful pop culture…How many things are truly *new? Fresh? And how many things are real?

I often think about how I wish I existed in another era. A time long ago when people believed in fighting the good fight, and process. I don’t feel like I belong to this age. You can call me a hypocrite for blogging about this (although I’ve journaled about it too), so be it. I exist now.

But I don’t enjoy moving as fast as the world does. I like to take my time. I like a little mystery…sometimes even a lot of mystery. I like waiting for things. Well, sometimes. I like the compulsion to give and be my all, without conforming to anyone else’s ideas about what’s cool or glamorous or successful. I enjoy completing an organic process, doing things myself, from scratch. Getting my hands dirty.

I feel like things must have been more straight-forward without so many readily available shortcuts. Don’t you think? Or I imagine many things just being more natural. People probably traveled less, so I imagine the communities may have been more close-knit. There was probably little to no debt, unless you were an indentured servant or some situation like that. And since things were more traditional, commitments were taken more seriously. The perspective was different, more grounded. I think that being bound to certain commitments would actually be quite liberating, because without the acceptance of a vapid  presence of indecision- people would have been free to clearly focus on who and what they were responsible to. With great privilege and joy, at that. There was a sense of nobility that was revered in the past that barely exists today. Being a person of honor, who did the right thing and treated their commitments with chivalry was promoted, admired, respected and taught. There wasn’t so much of this, “do what feels right for you.” That type of approach seems to often yield an endless supply of empty possibilities.

People created ways to entertain themselves, much like we do now– except, it must have been much more mutually engaging then. Playing music, talking, playing games together…As much as I love film, I can imagine life without it. Because story-telling has always existed in various incarnates. However, entertainment, the act of being entertained, was not the center or goal of one’s purpose.

I imagine myself amongst the poets of the Romantic period. Spending all the hours available to me writing, and discussing intellectual thoughts with family and friends, or acting out plays and creating. Roaming free in the land that I lived in, having adventures and looking only a few paces forward, as necessary. I guess mostly what I imagine, the actual thing that woos me, is what I imagine a simple life would be like…without the distractions that exist today. Without having technology at my fingertips. With more left to the imagination.

The beautiful part about those thoughts is that I have the choice to define for myself how a modern life in possession of an old-world heart could be lived out in the present. And I can live that way in as much as I commit to it. But I think I will still have these fantasies: Oh, what it would have been to live life then…

Gotta Hand it to those Jihadists

Most of you know “Jihad” means holy war. This holy war can be interpreted as either a material, religious or political war against spiritual oppression in the name of Allah. Or it can also mean one’s personal struggle in devotion to Islam. Islam, in case you don’t know, literally means “submission”— as in, to submit to the will of Allah.

I am not here to give a basic lesson of what Islam is.

In light of recent events, a certain amount of thought-swirling about the brain has occurred. The facts aren’t what I want to discuss here, but rather an idea driving the action.

See, the truth is, I value extremes. I will always vouch for my fondness for saturation…as a concept. In certain ways (albeit limited ones, I suppose), I am a purist at heart. If I am going to be one way, I want to be totally that way. I admire the nature of radical thought and behavior. I understand the level of devotion it takes to sweat blood for something you believe in. And I think it is something to behold with careful consideration. Because how many people, or how often, is that kind of devotion demonstrated?

I would argue not very often at all.

I have a friend who once shared this quote with me: “Our passions are not too strong, they are too weak. We are far too easily pleased.” – C.S. Lewis

And C.S. Lewis is right- there is evidence everywhere to suggest that the things for which we declare our passion are only mildly reflected in our actions. Does anyone find that very disheartening?

For a person of Muslim faith, the ideal way to die is in martyrdom. This lends to the fact that there are so many extremists willing to die for their belief; to declare victory in Jihad through sacrificial death. Although there are many points that can be argued regarding how some of these people get to the place of intensity that they do—and while I do not condone violence or the murder of innocent people for the sake of a cause— I will say that I admire the commitment it must take to be willing to die for one’s faith.

As a follower of Christ, I would love to say with firm conviction that I would die for my faith, were I to be put in a situation where I was faced with a choice. But the truth is, when I really, fully try to imagine myself in that position- I don’t know that I am strong enough. That isn’t to say that I haven’t had days where I have been, but that’s just the point. They are days. Moments. Seasons. Not constant. And that honest observation points to a weakness in my faith. I believe in a God that died for His people, motivated by the purest sense of love there is. Yet I have to question if I myself could return that act of sacrifice, if it came down to it.

That is an example of the radical that I lack in my faith. A radical that I would like to be more constant, more passionate…more undeniable and wholly consuming.

If you think about what martyrdom means, Christians are also called to be martyrs. We are called to lay down our lives daily to put on Christ, to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.  But are we willing to do so at all costs? Judging by the reputation of the church in modern society, I’d say definitely not. And where love is concerned, this is where I think we could take a lesson from the extremists.

Love is the kind of thing worth undying, defy-the-odds sacrifice. For a million reasons (I am certain if you let your imagination get a little crazy, you can think of the reasons yourself) love is the only thing that makes sense enough to devote one’s self whole-heartedly to. Hopeful endeavors begin here. If we’re plugged in enough, sometimes peace and acceptance even begin and end here.

People have brought it up before, and I am going to reiterate it now: What would the world look like if we focused the most intentional, committed parts of ourselves to the act of love- rather than to the more material and fleeting concerns of our day-to-day? That question begs at least some soul-searching.

There is a painfully austere degree of chaos ensuing throughout the world as we go about the business of our daily  lives. Why not seize the moment and declare the meaning, determine the value of our actions, right here and now? What efforts are worth our whole hearts?

Clarity on this matter has the power to drastically alter our purpose and transform the way we live. I know for me, I really hope/want to start moving boldly towards the constant of love….and I want it to be distinctly radical.

Didn’t Suit Me

He didn’t suit me

It seems none of them do

They are timid yellow

But I am vibrant blue

Their feathers puffed with false ego

And an arrogant sense of pride

While my wings are poised for take off

A free spirit ready to fly

It’s just he didn’t suit me

His world was a size too small

It seems there was only room for him

But I need space to fall

I sent his suit off some time ago

I’m sure he wears it well

What doesn’t suit me will suit someone else

And that’s the story I’ll continue to tell

Because those boys they never suited me

Just spun me ’round this way and that

And since they’ve been gone I soar towards the sun

There’s no gravity, no holding me back

I am You

“For a compassionate man nothing human is alien: no joy and no sorrow, no way of living and no way of dying…

Thus the authority of compassion is the possibility of man to forgive his brother, because forgiveness is only real for him who has discovered the weakness of his friends and the sins of his enemy in his own heart and is willing to call every human being his brother. A fatherless generation looks for brothers who are able to take away their fear and anxiety, who can open the doors of their narrow-mindedness and show them that forgiveness is a possibility which dawns on the horizon of humanity.”

“The compassionate man who points to the possibility of forgiveness helps others to free themselves from the chains of their own guilt, and restores their hope for a future in which the lamb and the lion can sleep together.”

We are all the same.

I’ve been reading “The Wounded Healer” by Henri J. M. Nouwen, and in coming across this brief section on compassion– I was kind of awe-struck by what it really means. It can be so difficult for us to be compassionate sometimes. We tend to place many limitations on our ability, or rather, decision to be compassionate.

I know that when compassion has been extended to me in both inconsequential situations and in more grievous ones, I am always very appreciative. In essense, someone is showing you mercy, no? But it becomes more difficult when we cannot identify with one another regarding the particulars of various struggles.

I started thinking about Jesus, and the compassion that was demonstrated through His life and sacrificial death. Many are familiar with the story of  how Jesus fed 5,000 people who gathered to see Him and His disciples, by multiplying what was originally five loaves of bread and two fish. In Mark 6:34 the Bible says: “When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things.”

Later in Colossians 3: 12-13, it says,

“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other, as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.”

I’ve been thinking about how human it is to screw up. I know that Jesus was God, but  as a human He never sinned. He did not know what it was like first-hand to mess up, but He faced real temptation and was human. He couldn’t “relate”, so to speak. Yet He had compassion on the sinners, setting an example of how we’re to treat one another— to love and to forgive. To show compassion towards sinners. Well, we’re all in that club.

When I thought about it this way, I was thinking how amazing His compassion is. Because though we know and understand the pain of mistakes and selfishness each in our own most personal way, we can be so stingy with our own compassion towards one another. That is really interesting to me. I don’t know if that strikes a chord in anyone else, but it sure does for me. It convicts me, because through forgiveness we experience hope. And wouldn’t we much rather spread hope than withhold compassion, thus continuing this bleak cycle of despondence and oppressing one another?

Colossians 3:14 “And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”

It’s all connected, folks.