Year: 2017

To wake up everyday with a desire to write but no words, just emotions and fleeting thoughts.

I often contemplate the nature of my soul and very existence. What purpose do I serve in this world? Why is my mind so fractured and wildly out of control all of the time, how is that useful?

If everything is ordered according to God’s plan, what could he have possibly been thinking to do with me? Also how is a person whose mental and emotional state is in such a constant state of turmoil ever figure out God’s plan for their life? God doesn’t speak to me, and if he was speaking to me he needs to stop using my own voice because that isn’t working too well.

So, in moments of semi clarity I cry out why! What were you thinking God?

Republicans who obstructed everything President Obama tried to do, complaining about Democrats obstructing trump.

Are we the nation born in the fires of war, proudly proclaiming our independence, laying out an ideology of rights granted by our Creator, rights that have been the cornerstone of a roadmap that despite our failings has brought us this far. We are an imperfect people, we continue to stumble along and fall short of the path we have laid out. But what is sad and even pathetic is how so many want to just live in the comfort of what they have, are not willing to want the same freedom and inequality for others. Somehow a large group of people believe that you can only fight for freedom on the front lines of a war as a soldier and if they are free well everyone else is as well.

Look, if there is a single person in this country who cannot drive down the street without getting pulled over because of the color of their skin then none of us is free. Freedom just as with life is a journey not a destination. If we do not stand up and fight for all Americans to be free and be constantly vigilant in maintaining the forward momentum of Freedom then eventually complacency will lead to erosion of rights. All you have to do is look around and see that there are men who want to repeal the 14th through the 19th amendments, why? Because they want only white men to vote, if some of them had their way only white property owners would be able to vote. Then there are those who actively refuse to treat all people equally under the law, from judges to law enforcement, this is a problem that is entrenched across the country and until all of the people are willing to stand against such abuses they will continue.

That there was ever a point in the past that was better than today. This idea that life was so much better before, before what though? And sure people give you all kinds of answers but if you look closely at what they all have in common is discrimination. Racial, religious, sexual; separate or together does not matter because at the end of the day it was when wealthy white protestant men ruled unabated.

But look how twisted this world is deep down, wealthy businessmen grew the Christmas that we know through advertising and turned it into the commodity that it is today. White protestants bemoan a war on Christmas because the secular spectacle they created is no longer under their control. The dumbest part of all though is that Christ didn’t admonish his followers to faithfully adhere to celebration of his birth, instead he admonished them to keep his commandments, to share bread and wine in remembrance of his sacrifice which was the new covenant, to pick up our crosses daily and to follow him. If you are angry someone didn’t say Merry Christmas then you missed everything that Christ taught and stands for in this world and the next.

Of course I imagine that the same type of people have always been around as we have today. The same people who blindly shout back the blue, probably would have cheered at the crucifixion, not because they are bad but because the status quo favors them and they want to maintain that status quo. And look how easily they can twist what someone does to suit their worldview, aligning kneeling or sitting during the National Anthem as an attack on the military and veterans is no different than the Sanhedrin convincing Pontius Pilate to kill Jesus, because they did not accept the message Jesus brought they twisted his words to fit their determination of truth.

And so the lies perpetuate generation after generation. The enemy infects this world with fear and hate, filling the coffers of the greedy who exercise control and power. We are so easily fooled and blinded by hard lies and soft ones. Always in too big of a hurry, as the Preacher Man said this morning we will not stop, pray, and wait on God. We do not trust in God or study his word. We cannot follow as disciples on a path we do not grasp.

So, we pine for the mythical better days. We escape into the lies rather than face the hard truths that we fall short everyday, everyday we must ask for forgiveness, and everyday we are expected to follow in the paths of Jesus or succumb to the world. Want an easy litmus test as to whether you are on the path with Jesus? Did you think negatively towards any person today or think you were better than someone for any reason? If so it is time to get on your knees and say the Lord’s Prayer. If you didn’t, then Jesus I thank you for reading my blog and ask you to join me as I pray the Lord’s Prayer.

Today, this day, is your very last day in this world. What do you do? Do you give up on it? Go back to bed maybe and sleep in, it wont matter will it.
Maybe you get up and go on in to work, but do you give it everything you have? Maybe you just half ass it, after all it is your last day why should it matter?
You get home from work, what then? Do you make the most of every moment with your family, or withdraw into your own things?
Was your last day just like the last 100 or 1000 that you lived? If you had to relive any of them would you want too? Do you even remember them? Did they each fill you with such awe and wonder that you put every bit of yourself into them. Maybe they were just mindless, regretful, empty; a rinsing and repeating of drab days that turned your mind numb.
Would you wake up on the last day of your life thankful and see it through to the end with the same thankfulness?
Are you thankful today, for this day? Are you so moved by the wonder of it that you will make the most of every moment, even the tedious ones? Will you show people you love them, be gracious, forgiving, and merciful?

I keep hearing people say people shouldn’t protest this way or that. Or people at Harvard held a silent protest and then people say this is how you should protest, taking a knee is too offensive if done at the wrong time, but sit silently. What the hell has happened to this country, when did we take out our spines and leave them on the side of the road. This is the country of the Boston Tea Party, the American Revolution, the Civil Rights Movement, now we are the country of sit down and be quiet. Sad.

Working against me.

Sometimes I don’t know whether I am coming or going. I can’t see viable solutions to problems, so, I throw myself into everything else that I can. Spinning my wheels over and over.

It is so much easier to just work. Work at the job, home, church, everywhere, anywhere. I run away from myself.

Human lives are by their very nature, fragile and fleeting. We allow ourselves to be consumed by the minutia of life and lose track of just how nothing is promised to us, not tomorrow or even today. I think this is why we are to trust in the Lord, turn our problems over to him, and focus on Love.
The reality is that there are some problems that we can not fix or possibly even cope with by ourselves. All we can do on our own is relentlessly obsess over them and compound the problems by feeding our anxieties and fears. In turning our problems over to the Lord, we talk about them, we name them, we unburden ourselves, and we are no longer alone.
When we focus on Love, loving our neighbors and our enemies, we build relationships. We begin to focus ourselves on the needs and well being of others, putting them before ourselves. In doing so our own worries fall away, especially if we have already turned our worries over to the Lord.

I am angry.
I am angry that as an American I know that even the vilest of ideas must be allowed to be expressed.
I am angry that as a Christian I know that I am supposed to love my neighbors and pray for them, even the vile white supremacists and their orange leader with the small hands.
I am angry because I know that responding with violence to small penis, goose stepping, white supremacists will solve nothing but I still desire to treat them exactly as they want to treat others.
I am angry with the enablers, those who through their silence or deflection are as much of the problem as the goose stepping assholes.
I am angry with myself as well because I know that I have done nothing in my life to significantly combat this cancerous ideology in my city, state, or country.

This morning I was thinking about spoken word poetry as a vehicle to get my book selling and this is where my brain ended up going.

We all have a rhythm, a beat that undergirds our lives, it flows within us and draws us along. But expressing yourself outwards is different, you have to tap into the rhythms that others are drawn along by, to pull them into your words. Oh, do not get me wrong using your own rhythm can be effective to a larger audience if it is similar or compatible, however, if it is too far away the discord will be too much to handle and you will gain nothing but a cult following.

Consider music, the rules that drive chord progressions and such tend to have a lot of carryover from genre to genre. Much of the difference besides the content, instruments, etc. can be found in the differing tonal ranges, bass heavy music as opposed to more melodic pieces. What you can start to notice if you pay attention to these type of things is common chord progressions and tempos across diverse genres, most especially in “popular” music. A good way to hear these differences, play an album by a one hit wonder, compare the hit song to the rest of the album and you may find that the rest is just not as “catchy” or appealing.

Poetry and writing, in general, have the same types of rules. Just as a story follows rules of beginning, middle, and end there has to be a rhythm or cadence for the written words to flow off of the page for the average reader to enjoy. If the language is discordant and uncomfortable to read, then part of the brain will spend too much time stumbling over even simple language trying to rewrite it so that it is comprehensible.

Now this, of course, does not ignore that there are groups of individuals who are outliers and will be more in tune with discordant rhythms that most other people will find too uncomfortable. In fact, I propose that if one was to simply consider the vast universe it is clear that diversity, order, and chaos are requirements of any system and the discordant groups are as natural and orderly as those in harmony with each other. The moon is the cult following of the earth, comets are cult followings of some force within the cosmos, planets are the mainstream followers of the suns, on and on.

So, it all boils down to where one wants to be in the cosmic scope. A sun or cosmic dust? Is your rhythm appealing and consistent?

Despite having caught a glimpse into the workings of the universe, I still have no idea how to get into spoken word poetry and have instead produced a discordant path of ideas that leave me desiring the eloquence to weave them into something more.