"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."