a note on notes

sometimes i worry about how its going to play out

this song i'm singing

i know there's a high note coming that

when i hit it

sounds so good but when i don't

could cause water to curdle

i know it's coming

i know it

now i'm thinking about it

but i'm still singing the notes leading to it

but not thinking about those

i'm thinking about that high note

i'm missing the notes i'm singing now

i'm not feeling the music right now

i'm not experiencing the song at this moment

i'm worried about that high note

and now that i've worried myself into a tizzy

i'm almost certainly going to miss that note

if i felt what i'm singing now

maybe i'd hit that note

but i'm not

i'd like to stop worrying and start enjoying this song.

Dear God,

I like to take Your words and pick the ones I like for tattoos.
I think what You say is nice but I think I can arrange the context a little better.
So thanks for trying, but I got it from here...

monuments and mercy

here i raise mine ebenezer, hither by Thy help i've come

and i hope by thy good pleasure, safely to arrive at home

Jesus sought me when a stranger, wandering from the fold of God

He to rescue me from danger, interposed His precious blood.

that.sit

my dreamgirl

you're who i want

you're who i need

when i think about the end, i want you there

you like who i am

you like who i'm not

when i think about what i want to be, you will be there

someone to love

someone to love me

when i think about anything, you're the one that i want to be there

i love you

you love me

when we think about God, let's thank Him for us.

Christmas Lost

Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childish days; that can recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth; that can transport the sailor and the traveller, thousands of miles away, back to his own fire-side and his quiet home! ~Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers, 1836

i'm a child and she was my Christmas lost

i ran to the tree for the only thing i wanted

i tripped over a table and didn't bother to hurt

she was underneath in my dream the night before

but lunging at the present alter i found nothing

no one could convince me my dream wasn't real

i could feel her and even smell her hair

so you can imagine my disappointment

i wallowed for a bit then stumbled to pop's lap

i crawled up in it for a glimpse of relief

but i could feel his heart skipping as he held back

tears for my lost Christmas

but still i could feel his love

it was just that i'd have to wait another year or so

Orange Juice is a Black Man

this all started last week at Spider House over a $7 pitcher of Lone Star with a friend i hadn't seen in weeks...

i think we're given things in life. some more than others. i, for one, have been given amazing gifts:

1. a family that loves me unconditionally and supports me financially, emotionally, physically, spiritually... basically in every way possible.

2. friendships. unbelievable friendships. friendships that will never end. the kind that inspire, antagonize, and nurture all in one motion.

3. life's necessities. with no worry about them ever going away. shelter, food, water.

4. talents. things i can do that i'm not sure why i can do. music. writing.

5. a million other things that just make me absolutely rich in comparison to 95% of the world.

but thats not my life. i am not my gifts. i am not what was given to me. my being doesn't exist by those alone. life CANNOT be just about getting things and then being thankful for them while we squander them. because mark my words, they will not always be there:

my family and friends will die.

our earth will die, and along with it, all the things that sustain life.

my talents will die with my age: i will get arthritis and my mind will go.

all my stuff will go quicker than it came.

LIFE IS NOT COMPLETED IN OUR GIFTS.

they are gifts. and from God no doubt, but there's more. living isn't just sitting and receiving. there has to be an element of movement. living is an action word, and so life is.

so what am i doing? how am i reacting to the constant grace that keeps me in a state of ability to do just that?

honestly...

not too much. i could be better. i could live better. but the struggle for me is: "well if there's grace, and God has ordained it all to happen, why bother?" which worries me. what if, that's not true? what if my actions actually dictate what will happen in the future, whether mine, or worse, others'?

but i don't think it's as much about Him and "the effect we have on the universe" as we think.

which sounds selfish, but don't stop reading because i think i can dumb it down to make a little bit of confusing sense:

God gives us gifts.

We recognize that.

We then live like a child who got the Sega for Christmas in 1990, and use it all the time.

In doing that we're acting. We're using the gift, which is why it was given... to be used.

In our action we find fulfillment. We're pleased and feel complete.

In our completion He is pleased. Because He loves us.

He made us to love us.

So in our completion we are pleasing Him, AKA worshipping him.

use your Sega's friends. don't just like them and talk about them and write books about them. USE THEM. live your life. work at it. that's where the completion is that you're all looking for.

that being said:

i think i'm getting old because 9 years ago after my first 8 o'clock college class, i never would have thought that work was something vitally important to my souls well being.

Hip Hop Holy Land

I turned my eyes to the east and saw drumming lights going away from the night. I leaned closer to try and feel a breeze from the fleeting candles of my comfort: because if they weren't shining, I at least wanted to feel the wind that blew them out.

and the breeze felt nice.

i can remember how nervous i was in 4th grade when i sat behind my dad's 1965 Ludwig Super Classic. i saw him play them every sunday morning in the church orchestra, and occasionally on weeknights he would come home from work and play along with his Chicago tapes. All of it seemed so cool to me.

Until i was sitting behind the kit that sunday afternoon.

That day it felt like shaking and sweating and i thought i was going to either puke or poop or both.

It wasn't until 9 years later that the bugs of public performance starting to turn from death-ridden fear roaches to excited fluttering butterflies.

Now i'm a junkie looking for his next fix.

Using every limb and moving my being to the beat it makes is one of the best hits i've ever had.

There is rhythm in all things.

In the way a tree's branches break to all the crickets crying when the silence is too much to bear: its all got rhythm.

i make my own rhythm. And in doing so (and now to my point) have found a deep love for Hip Hop. From the original oralizing of The Sugarhill Gang to the present poundings of Aesop Rock, there's something inside of me that can't deny the calling of my soul to move to their beats. i won't troll on about how the greater part of the hip hop community has darker skin than mine, but i will stay there long enough to say: I'm very white. But it doesn't matter. Willie Nelson wouldn't deny there's rhythm in everything, nor would he deny the pure skill it takes to sculpt words in with beats in ways to move peoples souls and bodies. So i don't feel ashamed to confess to all of you that:

I LOVE HIP HOP

And I will until the day I die and go up to Glory where there will no doubt be a DJ spinning and angels dancing.

I'm Going To Name My Son Clive Staples Summers

"A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell." - CS Lewis

I read once in a Book, or was it that I heard a man tell me... either way, once it was presented to me that once a man is in heaven, should that be the eternity he is to receive, then he will no longer be the man who he once was on earth. I have come to believe that this would mean he would also no longer be a man. Not even an inkling of what he was in the physical would translate into the the hereafter. Now, I understand that if that is true, and it being Heaven, then the alternative must just be so beyond my comprehension of "goodness".

That being said, I still wish I could meet CS Lewis. Meet who he was on earth. I'd like to sit with him in The Eagle And Child, share a cask beer and maybe a good Scotch, and just listen to him. He could tell me the lineup of suits that he has and where they came from and I would still probably be blown away.

All this begs the question though: Will any piece of me be left in who I am once the other side of eternity? If not, then what's all this for?

If any of you theologians out there have some insight, I would love to hear it.

for the record

i'd just like to say that i don't know where life goes sometimes. it's somewhat of a conundrum as i'm in it. i live what is life every moment that i breathe. i am alive. but where does this life go? where is it that i'm heading? i'm not so sure.

i had a sinking feeling when i was driving home tonight. i've had this feeling a few times in the past few days.

so what to do with that?

i guess we'll see, but what is my life has been such a disgusting mess of good, bad and i-don't-know-what-the-hell-to-think-about-this, that i'm just tired.

it's 2:44am and tired is a reasonable response.

so i'm going to sleep. i'm going to dream. i'm going to let my head and heart rest with hopes of a clearer state tomorrow.

i know it's been a while since i've posted here, and i'm sorry for the diary-esque-ness of this one but i just needed to get it out there. thanks. i love you. goodnight.

Lord I Was Born a Ramblin' Man

as our nights are washed away by the whites of a fresh new day, i'm certain that we could stand to be reminded of a few things.

1. the rest

2. the grace

3. the forbearance

these things that relegate us into our freedom, into our life. they don't give us breath, but they keep us breathing. and from whence do these and so many more life sustaining elements come? i believe God.

Jesus Christ.

not a feeble non-existent "being" that floats above and outside of us. not a thing that's sole absolute attribute is to have none so as not to offend.

no my friends, mine is a God that offends. who speaks a Gospel that terrifies. who for reasoning beyond my capacity, has seen fit to allow me the 3 items above and so many more to keep breathing. He will certainly tighten my chest at times, restricting the flow into my lungs, but He won't suffocate me.

i wish that i could understand how a God, a being who was made by nothing, would want to make me, let me go, only to break me, then take me back for His own.

it's all so painful.

and in my fight against the pain, i medicate with a confusing mixture of truth and lies. as many steps forward as i have taken, it feels i've taken twice back. i throw my words to the skies hoping to feel absolved of my wrong. but i don't feel it all the time. i tilt the bottle back to numb the grief of life's certainties. but i wake up with a guilty headache. i go to liturgy hoping to energize my spirit only to run it out in the first hours of leaving the building. i hold conversations of significance to distract myself from the inward reflection that is so necessary. but i see inside all the more.

a confusing concoction indeed.

but because of Him, i can still breathe in, then let it out.

over

and over

and over

and over again.

we all want to know why. i do. but i just don't know if i'll ever get that answer. at least not in the form of words related to the questions we're asking. maybe it comes in the form of something that pauses your heart.

a sunset or a symphony.

when we see a child's tears screaming the life that can't stay inside them, we want to know why death must be. but if we could just notice... if i could just notice, the fact that the child's life can't stay inside of her because it's just too big, well, i think i'd feel more comfort.

keep breathing because you can. and don't stop 'til you can't.