"The difference between you and me, is that I try my best to practice what I preach."

There is a story. About an old man on a bench in his county jail cell. He looks up to see the cracks in the concrete and prays for rain to wet his mouth. He looks down into the dark corners of his cell and sees possibility in the unknown. He gazes through the bars until they are no longer there. All he sees is you. On the road by your house, running with a hankerchief in your hand, holding it out in front of you like it's the most important thing in the world. He sees, in his memory, The night when you fell on the ground and got rocks stuck in your hands. You cried for hours.
You cried when you came into the world, you felt the weight of the world on your tiny shoulders and it was the only pain you can remember. The marks left a lasting impression. It's in how you move, how you turn around a corner and see everything waiting to be realized. The light shines from your face. The dangerously distorted face, to resemble a childlike innocence. You cried for relief. You were given rain instead.
There was a winter through these parts a while back. No one remembers it from any other one but I do. I remember all the men and women in their dark clothes and darker faces travelling through the alien snow. The white, untainted snow that only lasts for a minute before the world turns it to a dirty, undesirable slush that just lays on the ground. But you floated on.
And as these noisy shackles shuffle their way to the last corridor of the hallway, I knew in my heart that you were what I could never be. And it made me smile. I was willing to die for a principle. You died everyday for so much more than I will ever know.

Cowards.

My body is dead and full of rust.
My dry bones rub away to dust.
The weight of Glory hangs above my head.
It's the only thing I've ever felt.
The weight is the light. The weight is light.

Can you not feel it too?
The sense of everything in all things.
You can hear it in the air, in the angel wings.
Or maybe all you can hear
Is my mouth empty, full of fear.

Did we get desperate?
With our eyes so bright we had to close them!
Everything inside of us screaming for the ache of life!
Kill the light before they see it.


-If you feel responsible, you are.
For those given great things, great things are expected.
Don't try to hide your beauty and potential from
The one who gave it to you.

"I dreamed I had a gift for you, for holding up my sky."

I've been listening to the Laura Gibson album, Beasts of Seasons, and I have to say, it is stunning. She has a way with words that is both refreshing and honest. And this, slow, painful at times kind of mood to it. It has been a huge influence on me recently. For awhile now I have been tossing around this idea of potential. I think that we all have this intense, painful beauty inside of us. I don't think, I know. I can see it. When someone swallows, and accepts something so painful, but continues to care for others, even when you can see the pain so clearly in their eyes. I see it when people's dreams shatter, but continue to make due, picking up the pieces. They can put that broken dream on their mantle and be proud of it. At least they tried. They gave it their best shot and fell short. That, is my definition of potential.

The potential to be better human beings than we have to be, by either law, or societies' standards. The potential to be truly great, amidst mediocrity and self doubt. Why can't we all choose to live life in this manner? What about it is so hard that we fail to? I've been thinking about this for some time, and after having a good, long, honest talk with a friend, I think the answer is namely, sin.

I know that I don't like to talk to much about "Christian" themes, I like to speak to everyone. I'd have to say I still am. It would just depend on who is still listening. I'm starting to think that, outside of God's grace, we would all be at each others throats, or, even at our own. I feel terrible, but I think that I have to admit that Calvin was right. At least about his idea of total depravity of man. I fought long and hard here, at a reformed college, but the facts, remain the facts. We cannot achieve this beautiful potential, this beautiful thing that permeates from our eyes, from our soul, and let it out into the world. And not to just, meet some kind of end, except to glorify our creator.

"I dreamed I had a gift for you, for holding up my sky." Let us give all that we are, for the one holding up our sky. Let's be serious about our worship. And I don't mean arms folded, stoic faces, but I mean jubilation! Be joyful! I'm tired of half hearted praise. It's just not even worth it. I'm tired of it in myself. So, even though I can never give a gift of equal value to the gift I have been given, I can give You my life. That's all You asked for in the first place.
Amen.

Of the Father.

A while back I looked into the future. I wrote a piece concerning the death of my father. I thought about a lot of things, and how I wanted to be there at the end with him. It turns out, I wouldn't get that oppurtunity. Since his death, I've looked at these words and its just kind of welled something up inside me.

-But still I heard the breathing. The sloppy, inconsistent breathing that could drive a man mad! He rolled over, wrapping himself in a cocoon of comfort as he continued with the seemingly eternal wheezing. I was there at the end. I held his weak and hardened hand until he was no longer here. The family didn’t talk much anymore. So no one knew that the one once looked up to as a father figure had passed away. But his role passed long before he decided to. There was a small funeral with conservative bouquets and a couple people no one knew from out of state, they were here and gone by Eight. A quite goodbye for a man who quietly waited to say so. But if you knew about his works! If you knew about his humor and quirks and his odd way of making imperfection work. If you knew about the endless hours he spent working the graveyard shift, it would seem ironic to you too. And it was in all the papers. His decline from mankind into something less divine. And how the family continued to disintegrate until there was nothing left but a quiet hate. He would go on to find another wife and so on and so forth, but you could tell in his eyes he knew what it was worth. Nothing next to a grain of salt. He was left in his life to rot. But I was there and gone for so long. I was busy, I was tired. I called but got someone I refused to know. I got older and let my hair grow. I forgot altogether with the coming school and the snow. But I was here now, with my brother and my entire history that I slowly forgot in tow.-

But this isn't why I'm writing. I think it takes something as tragic as this to help shed some light on this miserable excuse for an existence. For some time now I have been trying to get people to think about the value of life, and not just their own, how selfish we are! But the idea of my life and your life and his life and her life and all of the lives. We are all so much more important than we could even begin to comprehend. One life can change the world, it happens every day. When I heard that my father had passed, the first thing I said to God was "thank you." For all of the lessons learned and times spent with a man who showed me how to and to not be a man. I was thankful for getting a second oppurtunity at having a father. But most of all I was thankful for this understanding of life, in light of death.

These lives we were given are full of so much potential and greatness it's kind of hard to take it all in. But we sit and stew in mediocrity. Good enough slowly killing us from the inside out. The greatest sin we commit, as far as I see it, is the one where we actually believe that we have reached a certain plateau, and now it's okay to coast. If we truly are living our lives for Christ, if we are divinely inspired, then why are we not so much better than we are? Why do we continue to let something as trivial as sin get in the way of glorifying God? Does everyone shake at the core because of these things? We are all, every single person on this planet, given an oppurtunity. My hope is that I can help anyone, even one, understand what this oppurtunity means.
"Its not a cry that you hear at night,
its not somebody that's seen the light, -Jeff Buckley.
its a cold and its a broken hallelujah."

Don't pull a single punch.

I feel like its time to admit a simple truth: without even my feeble understanding of grace, I would have exploded tonight. I would have destroyed things that mean so much to me because of my anger and frustration and selfishness. I still might. But I continue to look to Christ this time. If I don't call on him now, then when will I? I don't like to talk about God a whole lot. I don't like to talk about him sitting in my heart, because that's too irrational. I can't explain love. I can't explain why people do the things they do. But I am starting to get a serious hint; that I do understand something.
All of this makes no sense. Now that I can understand that, the logic can again resume. Everyone makes their own decisions, even when it hurts.
What do you say to something that rips your heart out? To something that makes no rational sense? All I can think of is thank you. I guess at the end of everything, good is good because we've been through the bad. A good taste in your mouth is only understood if you've tasted something awful. Love is understood, in all of its awe and intensity, only after leaving yourself exposed and paying for it. Time and time again.
Grace. Makes all of this bearable. Resting in the presence of my creator, and understanding, for the first time, maybe how God may feel when I choose not to love Him. Yet He continues to love me, even though it isn't exactly returned. In the face of everything I'm starting to get this now. Even though I don't even understand why He loves me in the first place.


A tired man on a tired path.
Carries his heart on his sleeve.
He continues to love and to believe,
Even when everything remains to be seen.

Discipline.

I struggled for awhile to write this. I've thought long and hard about this recently, and after seeing Gran Torino tonight, I think it all has come together. Clint Eastwood portrays a man we all know. The grumpy, bitter, old man who remembers "the good old days." The days when you looked a man in the eye, or you gave a firm handshake. The days of old when you treated one another with respect and dignity. I can understand their gripe. In a world of unmade beds and clothing sold to fifteen year old girls that barely cover their private parts, it would seem as if the world had turned in on itself.

In our drive for ease and comfort we have given hard and rigid over to light and fluffy. Strict time schedules are put in the annals of history with text messages apologizing for being fifteen minutes late. Instead of accepting the ways of the world, we bend our own worldview to make things fit to our ideas and whims. We are, in essence, "spoiled rotten."

If there is anything to take from the angry old man whose shirts and slacks are always pressed and the yard is always kept, it would be the ancient idea of discipline. Maybe this seems to be such a dusty subject because of my own life, or possibly our nation at large, but it almost seems like I'm speaking another language. It feels, archaic.

Have some self respect. - Clean your room. Wash your clothes.
Have a backbone. -Spend the day doing yardwork. Sweat a little.
Work for something. - Get a job.
Patience, pride. - Watch something be made with your own two hands.

I understand the frustration now. I think I'm going to fold my clothes and make my bed.


The practical applications of discipline are much greater and expansive than what I have mentioned. Since it's what I always relate back to, let us talk about faith. Do we have discipline in our relationship with Christ? What does it mean to be a disciple? Why do we call the first books of The Bible, the "Law" of Moses? Do's and don'ts. Wills and won'ts.

All of these rules had a purpose once. Although this all may seem abhrasive, let's be critical here. The Bible states very plainly how it feels about murder and theft and adultery. Now, we punish things like, murder, and theft pretty severely. But lust...I'm not hurting anybody, am I? I am enjoying myself, everyone has a right to that, right?

You want to talk about immorality? Or perhaps the images we feed our kids? It starts here. With us bending and breaking these rules that we have been given aeons ago. We were given them for a reason. There were here to guide our lives, and the decisions we made. I feel like it's time someone take responsibility for a life. Maybe I'll accept my own.


I've never felt more conservative in my life.

Knowledge of the Patient Oak. (Old.)

A tree scattered throughout the mess
Momentarily thinking of your beautiful dress!
A snapshot of perfection (but gone just as quickly.)
Years spent peering through canopy windows
Hoping to find some shimmer or glow

Distinguish me from the rest, if you can
When I'm not busy fufilling the mandate of man
Care for all The Wood but not of self
A trick I learned from father.
But in a hollow tone and trunk just as strong
I give a half-hearted argument for being alone.

The rains come and go with the season
Bringing the snow and poetic reason
So shed the leaves and all the work of the year
And no tears for the toil (Roots, grip the soil!)
Brace for the Winter and clouds for the sun
And know in your heart Spring will come

Trees of great age and girth commit to the sun
Leaving others to die, weak and young
But behold! On a night of virtue
The storm destroyed all the Oaks tall and wide
To show to the rest that they were dead long ago (on the inside)
So soak the rays and the "come-what-mays"
Know the light and the source
Know all things will take their course.



This was the first piece that I was actually satisfied with, for the most part. I feel like I could change a few lines, looking back, but I think it means more like this. I wrote this feeling like I had to get something off my chest, something very important. It stands out in my older writings because of that, I think. Other times, when I would just sit down and write, it felt like I was doing it wrong. I realize now that writing with an intent and purpose, rather than just for the sake of writing means so much more. To me, either reading or writing, it always seems to make the difference. Please make a point with what you say, and how you say it. I think there's some virtue to the idea of doing and saying just enough. Or instead of talking for half an hour, just say what you mean. I want to slap you in the face. This was my first real case of saying what I felt, to most importantly, myself.