A Taste We Have None

When all that is left is lashing out

When you're already juggling misery and discontent

When you're dreams are a stab wound

I did this for you.

Please take away my speech and my hearing

Please take my site and my taste

Please take the feelings as they spill

Leave me in the cracks.

And 28 years have come and nearly gone

And sadly I've nothing much to show of them

And if I live another day and another day

Just let me have it real.

Lift these empty spirits.  Bring the real clarity.  Cut right to the point.  Give me the bleeding edge.  Let me take the burdens on.  Patience, Knowledge, understanding, wisdom,... love.  

Forgive me a wretched man.

The eve of the Next

We sit poised in history for the next leap.  I can feel it.  Better yet, I know it is coming.  There are many times these days when I wish I could be free from this zoo.  I am bombarded by this world media and culture at a rapid rate on a daily basis.  Internet, radio, television, cell phone.  What did we used to do?  How did we used to connect to each other.  We are spending, I am spending, too much time entertaining myself.  My routine is suffocating.  What is it that drives this on each day?  What keeps me going through these motions?  Wake up at 6:30 AM, lay in bed until about 6:35 AM.  Urinate, take a shower, dry off.  Put on deodorant and go to closet.  Examine which shirt and tie to put on, put them on, put pants on.  Brush teeth.  Put on wedding ring, put wallet in back right pocket.  Find keys in the same place you always leave them.  Put keys on counter, put shoes, put on coat.  Make sure heater and lights are turned off before closing door.  Lock door and walk to car.  Start car and turn on AM radio or CD player.  Drive to work on the 94.  Get to work around 7:30 AM.  Clock in to work by 7:40 AM.  Eat granola bar for breakfast at or around 10 AM.  continue working.  Eat lunch around 1 or 2 PM.  Continue working.  Clock out from work once 8 Hours have been reached, usually around 5 PM.  Log out of computers, gather cell phone.  Put on coat and ride elevator to the 2nd floor.  Walk to car and.  Leave parking garage and wave goodbye to friendly parking garage attendant who always opens the gate for you so you don't have to roll your window down and use the key.  Pull out left and proceed to the 94 to head home.  Drive home and arrive there around 5:45 or 6... maybe earlier depending on day.  Pull into parking garage and turn off car.  Lock doors and proceed to apartment.  Unlock door, enter, lock door.  Take off  shoes and put near other shoes.  Hang up coat.  Say hi to wife and hug.  change out of work clothes into something else.  take a piss.  talk with wife about our days... my day?  Poop.  Eat dinner.  Depending on what day it is wife might have tv show to watch.  I might play guitar.   I might play a video game.  If we are really feeling adventurous maybe we go out to eat.  Spend time with wife until bed time. Go to bed and repeat until weekend.  Is this all?  There has to be something wrong with me!  I can do more than this..... please, let me do more than this in this life.

The Harsh Critic

Do you believe in anything you cannot see?  What goes on in your life that that you cannot see that you believe is real? 

The 20^th Century has ushered in a perverse dilution of tangible Christianity.  God has been limited in what we “See” happening around us or in what we are told is happening.  What happened to hearing things or smelling them?  What happened to touch?  When did we have to start proving to ourselves that God is real?  Christians like to talk about doing the right things.  I like to talk like I’m doing it right all the time.  But I am not.  There is a malicious pursuit of self-pleasure that has permeated our churches with their musicals and productions and their programmed selfish delusions.  They have become a “safe” place in the most dangerous sense.  There is no spine left…. Or it is barely hanging on.  Where has the will to stand up for the right things gone?  We turned it into F*&king WWJD bracelets!  Come on!  We turned it into the Christian Music industry and Christina Book Stores.  Stop trying to apologize for having a relationship with God.  Stop trying to veil your life by quarantining all your actions into the “safety” of a church building where you and your friends go to stop thinking.  We serve a living God and he is mighty to save!  We need unapologetic apostles in this new world.  Do yourself and everyone else around you a favor… start being honest with yourself.  Once you are honest with yourself then you can try and be honest with someone else.  Honesty.  

There is reason for us Christians to be harsh on ourselves.  We know.  We believe.  That is heavy.  We cannot hide who we are from God and since we are all part of the same body we cannot hide who we are from each other and still recognize each other as partners of the same body.  Where does this leave us?  This leaves us with a responsibility to be transparent with each other.  This leaves us to grow and mature and not be satisfied with the baby formula we received when we first believed… as we grow we need to move on from these things and continue building the base… not dwell on the base that was first laid when we were younger.  I am not speaking about age.  Age is not useless but it is also not a mandate of wisdom or a warrant of entitlement.  

I have one last sentiment.  Why do so many of you claim to be teachers or pastors?  Don’t you realize that you are held to a higher standard and that responsibility is not so generously bestowed upon the masses?  So many of you that I have met should not be pasturing a church.  You would do fine to lead a small group of believers and would actually be well suited for that.  Unfortunately there are too many of you getting degrees from Christian Universities and then assuming that now you can be a pastor.  What happened to spiritual gifts?  It is so painfully obvious that there are too many people practicing pastoring or teaching that are neither.  Can you not see it??   The point is not that I want to sit here and bash you it’s that I want you to consider the word of God.  Stop trying to convince your-self the Word says something it doesn’t.  I am by no means the author of right and wrong and I lump myself together with you in my criticism.  Our challenge is to love the Lord thy God with all our hearts and obey his commands.  Stop with the confusion and purposeful ignorance and move… just start moving toward being honest.

Strangers We Become

From behind the stained glass I peer into space

Aware of those familiar things; I observe

My senses key in on the sounds, the smells, the sight

There are many people rushing about 

Where are they going?  What are they doing?  They all have a story

The seas of people going about their business leaves me feeling disconnected

This is the purgatory of confusion and discontent

My body works against the demands of my mind

I am not sovereign nor am I slave

I am a free man who needs to serve his  master

My fear is not of human institution nor fear of loss

It is humility I seek; knowledge, wisdom, discernment, understanding

To wake up knowing you are no longer you 

Your new wires send new signals aligning your body and mind

The Spirit now guides this vessel

Now a stranger in the bustle, but with clarity I wander no more.

Looking in the Wrong Direction

As I read different mainstream media outlets there are increasingly alarming stories of human atrocity.  I read articles on Darfur, Rwanda, Sudan... there are more.  It is sickening to me that we as the current residents of this planet live out our daily lives and simultaneously there is genocide happening around the globe.  

How can this be happening?  

I read statistics of the millions that have been killed in the just the last few years.  

How can this be happening?  

We have got our priorities all backward.  I have my priorities backward.  I'm not sure how I'm to react to these thoughts.  

What can I do about this?  I wish that I had the power to end these murders and rapes and oppressions.  If I look at my life with the perspective that while I lived, these people died... for what, I wonder what my excuse is?  I fear that by the time these atrocities hit the mainstream media that the damage has already been done.  I feel that politics and greed have created and exacerbated these problems.  

What can we do to stop this?

I don't know if I even any answers that are intelligent.  I don't have a guide or even an indication of how it would look to end this.  What I'm left with is this:

God is the only force that can bring change to this.  As I think about that statement it seems vague, but I think that's a good thing.  We (collectively) and I (individually) are historically slow to act and unwise in our decision and judgement.  So for God to be the only answer seems like the strongest medicine we can ask for.  We need a miracle and who better to ask a miracle of then Jesus Christ.  A figure with a history of miracles and healing.  Our rock.  He can point us in the right direction; for we seem to be ever moving forward but rather than looking ahead we are constantly looking over our shoulders and not seeking the way.  

Lord in your Mercy, hear my prayer.  Please tend to your flock.  Please forgive me as I know not what I do.  Bring your hand of compassion to these dark corners of your planet.  Deliver your oppressed peoples from their evil masters.  Please feed your hungry.  The church is here..... your body is here.... please use us.  Please prepare us.  Please grant wisdom, knowledge, discernment, and understanding.  Above all, Lord, Please allow us to love unconditionally and sacrificially.  To your Glory.

Masquerade

This despair is upon us now

it is masked in pleasant contentment

it is a charade of poison which is sweet at the first touch to the lips

We have fled to our own reasoning

it has betrayed our first love

our knowledge is a plunged dagger in the back

When we were younger we could clearly see truth

our youth confirmed our passion

We visited miracles and dined in the company of Christ

Now, with experience has come doubt

with doubt has come fear

and fear has clouded our infant truth like a thick fog

Our hope now remains with in the prayers of others

as we swagger in this world's religion of self

those that are left behind are shattered 

But in this weakness there is true strength

God's love is abounding and his presence overwhelming

Through His power and mercy we can rise from our own ashes

God Bless you.....

Going Down?

The current times will not sweep away those who have a strong anchor.  Even as the markets crash and politicians come and go and the world itself groans on its axis; those with a strong anchor will not be swept away.  There is another way of living in hope and prospering love.  There are clear thoughts and meaningful clarities just through the haze of this media blitz and neon lighted signage.  

I feel a bit at odds with this global world.  There is some kind of weird circle we go through where we work to afford to live where we live and we work to afford the things we have and then we are conditioned to "need" these things and we end up laboring for the wrong things.  I end up neglecting those that need my help.  I end up neglecting the one who loves me.  I am guilty in many ways of being distracted.  

This brings me to my current condition.  I am trying to get back into school to finish my degree so that someday when my wife and I have kids, we will have the flexibility financially for her to stay home and spend her time helping to raise our children.  I am also in the process of finishing off two albums for two different musical projects.  This music is what I wish to do with my life.  It's financial success though is not guaranteed.  I will continue to write no matter what because there in lies some of my most honest thoughts and feelings.  The writer... the artist... these will remain and I will add additional arteries for benefit of my family.  God's will be done.  Where will this go next?