Painkillers, I might publish this in "Breakaway Magazine" sometime soon

“Painkillers”

The painkillers of life don't stop the bleeding, just dull the pain. I thought these words while in the car tonight. Strange how our minds use metaphors to say what we really see. I honestly do not think I am creative enough to come up with things like that. I think this aphorism (for lack of a better word) has some real meaning though. It portrays what everyone seems to feel but never says: the fact that life without purpose is a death really; we are basically living the time away until our physical deaths happen.
Life is full of cuts; wounds that are inflicted by the lies society and the world push down our throats. The thing is, no one is safe from them. I can imagine a scene of demons sitting down and conferencing about how to target every field of people, big and small, to give them things that will keep them unawares to the huge gash in their chest engendered of their sin. By our separation from God's worthy presence. I imagine them with a business slogan: “We've got a lie, just for you!!”. There'll be a big ad next with the slogan and the words under it read “Just call 1-666-GET-LIES to sign up for your free* subscription”.
Of course, there would be in small print a line telling them that free* means it costs nothing here, not meaning that you wouldn't have to pay anything. Ironic that is ad is a lie in itself. The world tells us that everything has been solved and now you just have to find “what works for you”. They believe their own crap about the materialistic American Dream or 'finding your own truth' (or yourself), or the being in the right crowd. The idea that this place has what we really need is pathetic, and at times even shallow and selfish. With the way this sticky web has spun thus far, it amazes me anyone finds Jesus at all.
Last spring I spent my first border crossing mission trip in the side streets of Ensenada, out in the hills where those who have little money live in houses made of tarp and wood. After my time in Mexico, it is very hard to accept peoples' attitudes about materialism and that way to happiness. In the United States, we have Starbucks on every corner and mustangs and credit cards. This stuff makes people think that our goal in life should be to get a good education, so you can get a good job, so you can get more stuff. The problem is stuff just becomes more stuff and then it becomes junk and debts, and old cars that go o the dump. It doesn't lead anywhere but to working more so you can pay off the debts and then get more stuff. Eventually the debts are paid and the stuff is spent and all you have is garbage, and that's about what your life ends up being worth. One wise Christian guy I forgot the name of once wrote about how he read an article on a person who had the American Dream.
He had a great life, retired rich, and now spent his time collecting sea shells and golfing and doing art projects. What is great about his commentary is that he thought of what the guy is going to say when he sees Jesus: “Jesus, I may not have followed you, but will you look at my shells?” was what he came up with. If that is what life's painkillers do to people, I don't want any. I not so sure I want to buy into anything that makes me think sea shells and a good retirement will save me.
Don't get me wrong, I love democracy. It's very apparent that it's prosperous and is at the time the best method of practicing equality. But it also breeds a wound of materialism and need for stuff that doesn't get you anywhere but death. This is why people cling to painkillers. They need something that will dull the pain in their scars of life behind the Starbucks and credit cards. People really just want to be healed, but buy painkillers instead. This is why we have drugs and teen sex and alcohol abuse and “cliques” and gangs and stuff. To make us feel better. What is ironic is now politics and religion are being used for this also. You're either a Democrat or a Republican or one of those crazy Green Party people (no offense intended). Or you're “religious”; whatever that means. Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, Orthodox, Taoist, you name it- they got it. You are defined by the stereotype of the religion that suits you.
But when I look to the Word and read what Jesus said, I don't hear anything about getting what you want, or feeling good (or the word religious), or finding yourself. All I hear is about how he heals people where their at and loves them and is always there for you. I don't hear about getting a "good education" or getting laid; I hear about feeding the hungry, giving to the poor, loving the unlovable. So far, he's the only one to do anything right and the only one who can heal the scars, stop the bleeding. He doesn't make you feel good, but he gives you love and cherishes us.
What's odd about painkillers in real life are that they are used for people in extreme pain. Spiritually, people use them, get addicted to them, then die from the wounds that they forgot were still there. But God will never do this. He won't sit and watch you die while feeding you false hope and lying to you. He heals you, no questions asked. He's done it for as long as we've been around. It doesn't cost anything, you don't even have to be saved (though usually, people are when healed). Yet people still would rather be fed the crap society tells us will heal us.
We get stuck with the weighty, molasses feelings of guilt. Or the sensation of loss where you feel the "blood" of your soul draining as you remember that day. Or the muscle wrenching spasms of hate and injustice done to me. Or the sleepy daze of sadness that doesn't leave, just gets covered up. It all gets covered up in layers upon layers of stuff, crushing them all the closer to the body, suffocating the wearer.
Hmm.“Painkillers”
The painkillers of life don't stop the bleeding, just dull the pain. I thought these words while in the car tonight. Strange how our minds use metaphors to say what we really see. I honestly do not think I am creative enough to come up with things like that. I think this aphorism (for lack of a better word) has some real meaning though. It portrays what everyone seems to feel but never says: the fact that life without purpose is a death really; we are basically living the time away until our physical deaths happen.
Life is full of cuts; wounds that are inflicted by the lies society and the world push down our throats. The thing is, no one is safe from them. I can imagine a scene of demons sitting down and conferencing about how to target every field of people, big and small, to give them things that will keep them unawares to the huge gash in their chest engendered of their sin. By our separation from God's worthy presence. I imagine them with a business slogan: “We've got a lie, just for you!!”. There'll be a big ad next with the slogan and the words under it read “Just call 1-666-GET-LIES to sign up for your free* subscription”.
Of course, there would be in small print a line telling them that free* means it costs nothing here, not meaning that you wouldn't have to pay anything. Ironic that is ad is a lie in itself. The world tells us that everything has been solved and now you just have to find “what works for you”. They believe their own crap about the materialistic American Dream or 'finding your own truth' (or yourself), or the being in the right crowd. The idea that this place has what we really need is pathetic, and at times even shallow and selfish. With the way this sticky web has spun thus far, it amazes me anyone finds Jesus at all.
Last spring I spent my first border crossing mission trip in the side streets of Ensenada, out in the hills where those who have little money live in houses made of tarp and wood. After my time in Mexico, it is very hard to accept peoples' attitudes about materialism and that way to happiness. In the United States, we have Starbucks on every corner and mustangs and credit cards. This stuff makes people think that our goal in life should be to get a good education, so you can get a good job, so you can get more stuff. The problem is stuff just becomes more stuff and then it becomes junk and debts, and old cars that go o the dump. It doesn't lead anywhere but to working more so you can pay off the debts and then get more stuff. Eventually the debts are paid and the stuff is spent and all you have is garbage, and that's about what your life ends up being worth. One wise Christian guy I forgot the name of once wrote about how he read an article on a person who had the American Dream.
He had a great life, retired rich, and now spent his time collecting sea shells and golfing and doing art projects. What is great about his commentary is that he thought of what the guy is going to say when he sees Jesus: “Jesus, I may not have followed you, but will you look at my shells?” was what he came up with. If that is what life's painkillers do to people, I don't want any. I not so sure I want to buy into anything that makes me think sea shells and a good retirement will save me.
Don't get me wrong, I love democracy. It's very apparent that it's prosperous and is at the time the best method of practicing equality. But it also breeds a wound of materialism and need for stuff that doesn't get you anywhere but death. This is why people cling to painkillers. They need something that will dull the pain in their scars of life behind the Starbucks and credit cards. People really just want to be healed, but buy painkillers instead. This is why we have drugs and teen sex and alcohol abuse and “cliques” and gangs and stuff. To make us feel better. What is ironic is now politics and religion are being used for this also. You're either a Democrat or a Republican or one of those crazy Green Party people (no offense intended). Or you're “religious”; whatever that means. Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, Orthodox, Taoist, you name it- they got it. You are defined by the stereotype of the religion that suits you.
But when I look to the Word and read what Jesus said, I don't hear anything about getting what you want, or feeling good (or the word religious), or finding yourself. All I hear is about how he heals people where their at and loves them and is always there for you. I don't hear about getting a "good education" or getting laid; I hear about feeding the hungry, giving to the poor, loving the unlovable. So far, he's the only one to do anything right and the only one who can heal the scars, stop the bleeding. He doesn't make you feel good, but he gives you love and cherishes us.
What's odd about painkillers in real life are that they are used for people in extreme pain. Spiritually, people use them, get addicted to them, then die from the wounds that they forgot were still there. But God will never do this. He won't sit and watch you die while feeding you false hope and lying to you. He heals you, no questions asked. He's done it for as long as we've been around. It doesn't cost anything, you don't even have to be saved (though usually, people are when healed). Yet people still would rather be fed the crap society tells us will heal us.
We get stuck with the weighty, molasses feelings of guilt. Or the sensation of loss where you feel the "blood" of your soul draining as you remember that day. Or the muscle wrenching spasms of hate and injustice done to me. Or the sleepy daze of sadness that doesn't leave, just gets covered up. It all gets covered up in layers upon layers of stuff, crushing them all the closer to the body, suffocating the wearer.
Hmm.
All I wanted was to pull it off in the first place. But then I would have had to look at it. To acknowledge their presence. All of these painkillers tell you its okay, but their empty claims, such as the war buddy telling his mutilated friend that he's “gonna be fine”. Just wait a little longer. Yes, somehow I've let myself believe their crap yet again. Reality only hits me at 11:59, when I realize that all they've done is make me forget that I was still bleeding.
All I wanted was to pull it off in the first place. But then I would have had to look at it. To acknowledge their presence. All of these painkillers tell you its okay, but their empty claims, such as the war buddy telling his mutilated friend that he's “gonna be fine”. Just wait a little longer. Yes, somehow I've let myself believe their crap yet again. Reality only hits me at 11:59, when I realize that all they've done is make me forget that I was still bleeding.

The Moment, my only current piece that's metaphorical

"The Moment"

I just woke up. I find myself lying in a pool. Blood, dirt, sweat. It's swirling around my legs. I am in the field. Torn by war and battles fought. Evil surrounds me. I know that now. It seems I had forgotten. They are not men. Beasts. I now see it for what it is. I've forgotten who I am. I have been reigned. Seduced. How did I get Here? Last night...
Those things I did. Those thoughts, those words. Were those mine? No. They're who I was. The veil has been ripped off. Tears begin to dilute the swirling blood. I am broken. I don't recall the wounds or my actions. Wait, no I do. Did I...O God! That knife was in my hand. How did I come to this? I'm not the victim. They didn't do it. I did. I stabbed myself. I hear footsteps. I'm too ashamed to... no.
Ashamed is too easy. Embarrassment is pointless. We all get wrapped up in what others think. I care more about whether or not people realize I'm a fake. And a beast. I've become one of them. That's what my old comrade told me. I care more that he knows I'm fake than that I am fake. That I'm broken. That I can't live without things that are evil. Did that really happen? Did I really begin to fight on the wrong side? Last night... No. My body aches now. My skin is flaking.
* * *
The battle is fierce. Always. Fields that are spread with blood. With fallen souls lying everywhere. Some have always been that way. Others have stood for a while. All have fallen. Circles make up the landscape. Everywhere there are groups of monsters. The only distinguishing feature of the fallen is their position as the center of attention. I am a soldier in an army. Always. So is the reader. So are the those in the lives of the reader. All have fallen.
One race is human. Whole. Far from perfect. But whole. They live as the protectors of those who do not fight, as well as those that do. They combat the monsters. The beasts of self-dom.
All have known the sting of their own blade. All have tasted their own blood, spilled by themselves. This is reality.
Reality. My reality is that I have felt that sting. The heat of blood spilling over the skin. The boiling sensation that is so sweet until the plunge into reality. Yet again. I have stabbed myself yet again. My scars have appeared as though He hadn't healed them at all. Somehow I held on to those scars. I would rather itch those scars than not have them. Even if the pleasure of plunge is wasted by time and overuse, I would rather feel the pain of the scar than give it up. Release is a temporal existence on this field.
Yet again I have fallen into what I felt was just a little better. I forgot His love. How did I forget He had made that scar disappear? How could I forget? I was distracted by the idea that this reality could be better. That I don't have to fight. I can rest. I can feel good. I would rather feel joy than experience it in full. Why? How did that scar appear. I remember...
* * *
Their he was. A monster. A changed being. Changed for the worst. His scars had appeared faster that time. His skin had flaked before he had even cut himself. But I didn't guard against their attack. I was too focused on saving him that I forgot to trust. Trusting His timing and justice. His Love. His Jealousy. Soon, I had a demon of my own, using his hands as a screen showing me my old life. The lie. This world isn't real. I felt my scars begin to burn. I didn't resist. How. All that training. For nothing. But it was a choice. How? Why? These questions are unfathomable. I cannot find reason in a lie. My skin, although staying intact, couldn't protect me. My scars had appeared. My demons had been resurrected. Suddenly they swarmed. Few kept on feeding on one as simple as my comrade. They yearned for pain. They lusted for unappeasable desire. My desire.
* * *
Jesus... Where are you? Why do I go back? Why can't I surrender to your will. Your ability to make me whole. To erase my scars. I lie bleeding here. This blood is like my soul. It is mixed with impurities. It is diluted with grime. My heart is impure. I still strive for an impossibility. Yet you made my pains heal and gave the world existence. The impossible was achieved. I lie here. I see that this pain is something I must give up. Yet is still accessible even now. Even after the countless times when I surrendered.
Footsteps are heard. The mixed blood drifts away as He walks softly closer. The ground defiled and torn becomes grass and garden anew. The wind smells sweet again. How can I go back. "May I kill them?", He speaks. His voice seems to resonate from the air and the ground as much as from His mouth. I still have not looked up. "Shame has no place in my presence. Things are what they are. I have not changed in the time of our parting." Yes, that's true. I still have to learn to live with this debilitation.
"May I kill them?". Yes. Please. This is the release. This is the moment where I choose. My moment. This period where time does not interfere, but returns to the first time. That time when I surrendered my being to One who is able to free me through death. This moment is my reality.
"You may", I breathe out at last. I look up as He thrusts his blade into my chest. Pain worse than before rips through the center of my being. But outwards. I am broken. My skin flakes. I am human again. It hurts less and less as my pain is swallowed by one who cannot be burdened. The monsters try to flee as I get up. My blade is already in my hand. Together the Enemy is vanquished on this hill. I realize yet again that I have more battles to fight; the war goes on, while my Saviour of mercy allows things to become horrible. The circumstances of that moment will be more intense in the coming years. This is my moment. This is my reality. To those who struggle in the Moment: Live your lives as they should be. Do not give into any lie, no matter the size. It is still not big enough to rule the battlefield. And so I challenge you: charge into battle with all the fierceness of God's jealous Love.

Chapter One of my possible "book" (its fiction)

Chapter One
* * *

Seth sat down on the cold curb, wondering about the idea of escape. Could he break free? What did he want to be free of? He couldn't tell, just that he wanted a scapegoat from this life. What's wrong? He sipped his Budlight, looking at the foggy twilight of the stars. Maybe he should go to the mountains. Then he could finally look at the stars, he could breathe a little there. I have that feeling like someone just left and I'm stuck in my house with nothing to do. But I haven't even seen anyone I know today. Man, I wish I wasn't so strange. "No one gets it when I talk to them. Not even Jenny," he exclaimed, not realizing he had said it out loud.
Seth looked around. He loved to go off by himself, just to watch people and ponder a little. His girlfriend didn't get it, but she let him go anyway. The guys were at a bar close by, but he had managed to get away for a while. The gas station was quiet. Just a couple cars, a red sedan owned by some old rich guy and his white pickup parked next to the food mart, where he had gotten his drink. A guy came out from the other side of the building, wearing dark glasses and a trench coat like some guy from The Matrix. Who's this guy?, thought Seth. The guy looked around, as if trying to identify someone. He looked over at Seth. Seth felt his spine tingle. He glanced the other way, not wanting to look like he was staring. The man began to step towards Seth, walking slowly with a big swing in his arms, like Neo or something. He looked surprisingly like him, actually. His hair was short and spiked, light brown too. Something about this guy gave Seth the shivers. But he wasn't scary or threatening, just the guy seemed so sure of himself, wearing that outfit. Odd.
Seth found himself staring at his boots, before long, which happened to be black leather. "Excuse me, you're Seth, right?", asked Matrix dude. Seth looked up at him, wondering how this guy new him. Was this a prank from one of the guys? He scanned the parking lot again, but his search proved futile. No one was there, not even the rich old guy. The street light glowed on the Matrix dude and made him look like he was glowing from the angle he was sitting at. "Well, I'll take that as a yes. I'm Sam, good to meet ya," extending his hand.
Not knowing what to do, Seth shook it, replying, "Likewise." Sam took off his glasses revealing eyes that, simply put, glowed green; a rich green that seemed to know the depths of your soul. Seth felt a tinge of fear, watching this guy stare seemingly into him, not at him. Their hands were still holding each other. The man called Sam lifted Seth up off the curb, putting him at eye level. Seth wanted to squirm, but he didn't know why. Sam released his grip and looked up at the sky, not speaking for a moment.
"Well, we should go. We've have a lot to do, and not much time." stated the man in black.
"Where? Why? Wait, who are you!?"
"You want to escape, right? Or do you want to be rescued?", replied Sam, ignoring Seth's questions.
"How did you..."
"Don't mind that, just clarify what it is you want. I don't have all day." Seth thought. Well, I guess I wanted to escape, but that would mean that I can do it myself. But I haven't found a way by myself yet, so I guess I want to be rescued.
"Okay, I want to be rescued. But what does that have to do with anything? How do you know about this stuff? Have you been hired by my friends or something? Is this a prank?"
"Well, first, it matters because I have to go to the next person on the list if you didn't answer correctly, which you did. Second, I don't have time to explain to you how I know what I know and why I don't know what I don't. But I can tell you that this is definitely not a prank. I don't have time for pranks at the moment, and now neither do you." Seth stood there dumbfounded, unable to process what this nonsense this guy was babbling about. "Well, you want to be free, am I right?" Seth nodded, still not comprehending. "I guess that would mean that I'm here to come bring you to where there is freedom. Anyway, that's what I would deduce from what I know. You want out from this life, right? This circle going round and round, just substituting life with booze and girls that leave you that fills you only with anxiety and depression and emptiness." Seth thought about it. He had been drinking more lately, and he had only been able to keep his girlfriends for about three months at a time his entire college career. Maybe this guy was on to something. "Anyway, we have to leave. I've been here to long and you don't seem to have any armor to get out of any bad situation." Armor, huh? Was this guy serious? Or even sane? Sam stared back. "Don't ask too many questions right now, okay?"
Just then a thundering sound echoed through the street. A gunshot! Seth ducked under his car, looking under the floor to see who had shot what. He saw a homeless guy walking away from his shopping cart across the street, with a handgun drawn, aiming at the guy who had called himself Sam. Sam was just staring at the homeless guy, putting on his glasses. He walked over to the Seth's car and got into the front seat. "Get in!", he yelled to Seth. Seth climbed in to his passenger seat as Sam drove away. He knew where I put my keys? Seth always stored them in his glove box when he sat by his car. The man was still shooting at the car as they drove away. Somehow, the guy had barely missed Sam every time he had shot at him.
"Man, I was almost off guard! Well, there's no turning back now, is there?" asked Sam.
"Where are we going?"
"Oh, I don't know. If I'm not mistaken, we are going somewhere near the mountains."

* * *

Free Slaves' Union of America (not finished)

"The Free Slaves' Union of America"

"The land of the free, home of the brave." That's where we live. This world with laws and money and the pursuit of happiness. What exactly is happiness? Girls? Money? Stuff!? Music, friends, God?
Somehow that last answer surprises. It's surprising because of its normality. Its not a surprising answer. It catches the eye due to its inconspicuousness. The land of freedom. Freedom to dream. Freedom of religion. Of expression in speech. Of slavery.
You can choose any of these. What's surprising is that most people only choose one.
The American church is doing well in this day. Financially. There are tons of boneheads who go to church and act the part. Tithing is just a way to "feel good" while not actually acting out. We can trick ourselves into giving enough that the world's problems seem to be solved while you still can go to Starbucks after the sermon. There are more people proportionally in all the countries where God is not let in legally than their are in America, where religion is free as your right to breathe. They understand what we are missing more often than we do. That's beyond sad. I watch hundreds of kids at school talk about what life is, but really just lying to themselves that happiness is in other people, things, sex, stuff. 'The person with the most toys wins' policy.
Life is about sports cars and girls and Venti Vanilla Lattes in the morning. Stuff. The best stuff. The most stuff. That's all I'm told in school. By peers, by teachers, by friends and enemies. Its all the same. Its all there. Its the subliminal message that slowly suffocates your ability to feel the supernatural.
Slavery is the most often picked freedom in America. It is the least proclaimed and most realized freedom that we are given. Ironic, yet truth.

My Song

"My Song"

I've got two faces. One, I keep with me and God. It's the one I don't have to deal with all the time. The other, is me. What everyone sees. Is me. But I don't have to deal with that one either.
Why? This doesn't make sense. I'm a geek philosophizes in his spare time. I seek to understand people and what they want versus what they need. Yet I personally can't deal with myself; "The world is crumbling, but I know why", sings a member of Jars of Clay. Quite insightful. But I know why. I find myself not understanding how I can see through others' problems and know how to deal with them, but I can't solve my own. The world is crumbling, as well as I. But I know why. Why do I have to tell everyone else why? Why I can't fix my own is maybe what I want, but maybe I want to keep it this way? I don't know. He does.
He gets it. That would make sense. He made it, He works it, He can comprehend it. But I'm still here. I still can pick up this cross of shame and grace and walk up that once crimson hill back in Israel. Yet the hill isn't really in Israel. It's in here. In this page. In these words. In my mind, heart, body. Then why?
A friend, Joel the Beloved, told me something in a somewhat unsteady argument where we had decided that the other was an idiot for not solving their respective problem by now. He said, with a slight amount of contempt, that it would be nice if I would just "not be so cryptic all the time." He was referring to my (obviously annoying) habit of pointing out easy to understand ideas in a way that makes no sense to everyone else. I like to call it my "Epic" syndrome. I like things to sound amazing. But he would refer to it as my Proverbial Sayings Syndrome.
Maybe thats what this is: an explanation for all my cover-ups and stealth operations on the battlefield. Here I am, pretending to be a leader, someone called by God to do something; But I have my own agenda. And "my people" sit back and tell me that I'm forgiven, just try again. I see that as only skin deep.
The funny thing is, He's the one really saying it.
I get myself into this idea of freedom, but it only lasts so long. Then I find myself looking for the painkillers again. I can't deal with it. I gave it to Him, but I want it back, so that I don't have to deal with it. It is just another easy to use pronoun. My end shows my means. I'm justified. Think about it. It doesn't matter what my it is, just that I keep holding on. All I want to do is let go, but I really, really just want to not deal with it.
Maybe my cryptic sentences will finally stop being two-faced and show up their worth in my friend's eyes. Maybe not. Either way, I hope I can realize that he is not so easy to figure out. He's a soul. and souls have a tendency to be deep. Deeper than I can see or feel. But maybe, just maybe, he'll get me this time and finally feel what I feel when I worship. One wise person commented (not to me) that singing songs other people wrote is worshiping God through their eyes and hearts. A type of communion that goes through other people into the worshiper and becomes them, so they can see another facet of His mind-blowing coolness. These words are my song. My facet that God assigned me to portray. This is my song. My song rings true, but me doesn't. Not yet. I'm still working on that. Conclusion sold separately.

My Spiritual Life in a Nutshell (Well, not completely)

"My Spiritual Life in a Nutshell"

What was, now seems to not have been; what seems to have been now seems was not. I see now that life has become something other than what we try to make it. Life is a reality that we never see completely. It's so odd. To find that life is not what you think, and that your view will never completely be right. It's this idea that God is impossible to label. Nothing seems big enough to contain Him, yet somehow I find ways to box Him in.
When I was little, my sight of God was quite simple. Jesus was this guy who you gave all your negative feelings and told all the bad things that happened to you and asked for stuff you needed. Basically, He was a toy; a machine. A slot machine that I asked for stuff, hoping that I might win the jackpot this time around. If you prayed enough, God might make things the way you want them to be. It was still all about me. Our faith always becomes about us. The me factor is so great that most Christians know the theology, yet don't go deeper. We get so caught up in what is going on with us and with our faith that we miss out on what God's doing and showing us.
My whole life has been about faith. I really haven't had a time I can remember where I didn't believe in God and His authority. But somehow I can get so lost without even running away. I turned 12. I went to seventh grade. My life became about school and sports and friends and stuff and not doing drugs and not joining gangs and being a Christian. I suddenly found myself proclaiming all these labels that I couldn't even define.
We were made to serve and to love serving. It shows in how we always serve someone. It might be yourself, or sex, or drugs, or money, or stuff, or a gang. But we still are serving. I found myself caught in this whirlwind of serving things that I didn't want to serve. Yet I found myself being drawn to serve them more and more. Innocence is so precious. Yet we lose it so freely. My school became overrun with a spirit of violence and hate. I don't know how, but my class suddenly toughened over the summer between sixth and seventh grade. I found myself cussing. Not to fit in, but because it flowed out like butter. It was fun. I cussed. I fought. I was tough. I learned to hate so quickly, I can't know how it overtook me. It seems almost that our first conception of sin being plausible, we have already sinned. I found myself secretly thinking that I was like Adam. Finding the knowledge of good and evil was powerful and enticing. It was all about me, my labels, and people knowing about me the way I wanted them to. I didn't end up doing something horrible. I didn't shoot some other kid and never told anyone or had sex in middle school or anything. But the contemplation of sin as okay, acceptable, was the worst sin I committed. I enveloped myself in darkness. That was to the truly evil piece. Not the cussing or the fighting. It was letting in the evil, knowing it as such, and abiding with it. Understanding the hypocrisy and enjoying it.
My life has always been one spent in the spiritual realm. I know only a few others who can do the same. But it can be fatal, even in small intensity and for a short time, to your ability to see. I would say that you cannot truly know your salvation as amazing as it is without understanding how bad your sin has grown up into. The sin grows. Creepy. Sin grows and intensifies and pulls harder and harder until suddenly you find yourself so far away that you don't want to stop and you want to go back at the same time. Your desire becomes more and more intense, yet your fulfillment and enjoyment decreases and diminishes until you are an empty shell of a person.
The sad thing is, most people don't see their gossip and bickering and open sexuality and lying to their loved ones as evil. Sure, it might be somewhat wrong, but its not all bad. Not all the way bad. Only a little bad. Something I learned in those two years was that darkness at every level still lacks light. That light, being lacking becomes worthless because you still cannot see as well, though you may be able to see some. If we can't see all the way, what then is the point of seeing?!
When I finally saw this, I remembered, out of the blue, that Jesus was the way out. That God will always set you free and clean you and make you entirely new. So I went to my room. I don't remember how, but a bible was sitting next to my bed when I went in my room that night. Strange how those things happen just when God seems like He's not there. So Jesus filled me up, probably for the first time where it meant something more than me. It meant resurrection. It meant death. It hurt. I cried. But Jesus felt my pain. He understood that grief all too well.
Ever since, I have been able at times to find Jesus and physically experience Him when I worship Him. This is where my story gets good. Suddenly, my life changed like crazy. It seems my life hasn't stopped being crazy and changing drastically ever since. My Dad got remarried over the summer in between middle and high school. I received 4 new sisters and a new mom and family to go with it all. We got a new house and a suburban to fit us all in. But God wasn't done. Alice, my step mom, got involved in Inner Healing. I didn't really get it or know why I needed it, but understood what she said about it to be true. But God wasn't done. He put me a new school after my freshman year. It was crazy.
I had never felt God say, Go to another High School to be a soldier for me, before. But now I had. I didn't have some crazy encounter or something hear about on the 700 Club; I just knew I had to go to this new school. But God wasn't done.

What am I here for?

Okay. So I decided all of a sudden that I was doing a blog. Yes, even I, the great despiser of MySpace has become a blogger. Of course, blogging had been around for years before blogging, but it only took off due to MySpace and "useability".
Well, I'm here to store thoughts and comments on life. I want a chance to share my writing with others, as I don't necessarily want to publish what I write, but wish to share it for the advancement of God's Kingdom.
If you don't like Christians, or think they are hypocrites, you probably have a good reason. But I think you might change your perspective on whether being a hypocrite is any different than any other sin out there. Christians aren't perfect, we don't claim that auspicious title. That would imply we were Jesus. And that's not the point. So, if you are not a Christian, don't let that keep you from criticizing my narratives and essays. I have also written a small amount of fiction, a few are metaphorical, but others are just stories.
Yeah, well. I got nuttin' else, but I hope anybody who happens to read this would not count my mistakes as Jesus' actions. I'm not perfect; He is.
My essays and such are not in any order, but are supposed to be read as a whole. Some works may refer to issues discussed in a separate work.