It's Saturday. Again.

I'd like to be wholly me always. Great at home on a Saturday night, fully engrossed in my book or voiceover stuff or legitimately investing in my flatmates. Going out when I go out, engaging because I'm not afraid and know my value - the sort of person you gravitate toward. I don't want that last bit for attention, but because life begets life.
There are so many fearful, petrified, walking dead in the city I don't know what to do with myself, so when I find myself in that hunched and contactless grey, I look to the sky and breathe deep. I feel alive - not just the tingly sensation when oxygen floods my starving parts, but a deeper surety.
I intend in that moment to open up. And immediately I reconnect with the anchor to my soul:
God, the rock, my strength,

is here.

And I go free.
My posture changes, I smile like a mad person
because suddenly this life isn't the thing anymore, can't crush me, because it's stuff that's easy and ever-changing.

The difference between Heaven and Heaven.

...

I have a hard time drawing a distinction between the sound of Jesus and Jesus. They sound the same.
But I know Jesus as Grace, which is directly applicable to every moment, so then that relationship is something I want to harbor and develop. He's not a guy from history, like Alexander the Great, that I'm somehow supposed to reach out to; he's not a ghost I channel or Ouija.

He's like a helmet...hooked into the innermost part of the brain and tied to your eardrums to coordinate balance. It's why 'Jesus lives in your heart' is a thing.
What do you hear.

Grace. Peace. Love. 

It's a placement (perspective) and state of mind (perception) that I'm enough where I am and as I stand. I don't need to fake anything, am not too proud to ask for guidance or help, don't need to manipulate to get what I want or need. And no matter what harsh words or crappy circumstances come my way, the thing isn't the thing. All things only affect you as much as you let them.
This doesn't mean you're cold. On the contrary, when you're no longer blown about by the things outside of you, your capactiy for empathy, courage, patience, (and other fruits of the spirit) all increase in ways you could never have imagined.

People, the ones who want to affect you and be affected, will think you're cold or weird, but it's because they're losing control - not getting what they desire, that is, a stimulus to react to.
We all do it. We're just free now to do it less.


I was raised Christian, so that's the language I deal in. However, my perception of Jesus is one I received outside of a church building. It was given to me by people who practice walking the daily God, the moment by moment interaction we have with the life of things, because if God's not the God of the little things, what's he good for? Our days grow mundane without purpose - treading trodden trails (thank you DMB) - but if Love is here, and Grace is to change from who I was a moment ago (childish, dramatic, reactive instead of responsive) to who I want to be (classy, like George Clooney...or someone you know who's measured, even keeled, and who stills your soul), then every day is purposed, no second wasted, everything directing me to what I want to invest in and reap from. In this place is empowerment because you see the absolute PRESENCE of the moment at hand. It's a resource, time, and really the only one we actually have. (And it's a figment - doesn't THAT make you feel small.)
We spend it dealing in other things, games and business and business games and relationship follies and vices we return to again and again, but at the end of the day we only ever do the things we choose to do, and that's our life.

You are free to feel obligation and you are free to submit to it.
You are also free not to.

So here I am on a Saturday night wishing I was out, being popular, being outgoing, making real friends, as if I've never done these things and like the small measure of satisfaction they brought was lasting.
It's like sugar - delicious, mostly empty, a little ruinous. Depresses you. Makes you hate yourself.
Ha!
Again it's all a matter of placement: where do I stand and what am I looking at: my lack? the fact that I want attention and so I'll go out and grab happiness and then be accomplished because I can do things and am capable? That bit of my life would have been the boring, filler chapters where different characters play the same roles until the protagonist sees something he couldn't see until it was time.
But even those chapters have purpose.

...am I worth anything when my phone doesn't blow up.

I question my value ... perpetually. When I realized the value of humour, I had to be the funny guy. When I thought I was ugly as sin I thought I wasn't worth a damn. I can't lie to save my life and the kids who could were coasting through life...It's all delusion. In God, in the existence, we're all on the same plane: rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief. What you walk in sets your pace, how you think determines on what your eyes rest, and if you face the rising sun you'll always have hope.

This is the moment of salvation, so go free.

del·i·quesce

 deliˈkwes/

verb

(         1.  (of organic matter) become liquid, typically during decomposition.

                Chemistry

                     (of a solid) become liquid by absorbing moisture from the air.

 

 

Everything's changing, even hearts of stone.

Graahj

I was speaking with a friend recently, one on painkillers from an impromptu root-canal, and we know how that makes for liberating conversation because both parties are drunk: one under influence and the other free to say whatever-the-hell because the other's drunk. I spoke at length about being gay and being in the early stages of a burgeoning relationship in which I've found myself.

I don't do relationships.

I'm good with people and great (?) with my friends (the ones who live near me - sorry all you imaginations from the past...=/) but that's where things end. I've been engaged and I almost died. I was going to write 'it almost killed me' but that takes all the personal responsibility out of my emotions and reactions to them. Both parents are twice divorced and aside from saying 'I'm not my parents' I'm finding myself becoming them both, except gayer.

For a long time I fought being gay. couldn't wouldn't oughtn't need-to mustn't holyhell I-DID-IT-YESSSS oh-SHIT-I-DID-IT-NOOOO and so on. I spent all my time thinking about it and hiding it and fighting it so I was never at peace. Which isn't God. It's not the thing that's the battle: it's holding onto your sword and power in the midst of ghost attacks (ghosts are nothing, btw). And then I stopped thinking about it. And then I was engaged.
I still think it was pushed on me, but that's to avoid the more appropriate and true understanding that I said yes when it was suggested to me. Again avoiding responsibility. Boo. Anyway, this unhappy state of affairs and the sad-sackness into which I descended came with a resurgence of gaiety that frustrated the hell out of me. At the same time I was growing into heights and depths of God: the spiritual loftiness of moving within and without, not being stolen from, hearing from the mouth of God words of peace and walking in them, as well as the depths of agony those glories touch. 'Even there grace can be found.' I came to consider gayness a separate thing from me which was incredibly liberating: it was like a lizard on my shoulder that told me things and I could shut it down with a wave of my hand. Unfortunately, when I was bored and alone any voice suggesting the thought of someone caring for me...touching me...strong hands and arms comforting me and taking away my loneliness...everyone knows how easy it is to revert to habit and jump into familiar courses. So 'it's not me, it's this lizard' was my go-to. A pet I didn't ask for.
Then it became like a badge pinned to my lapel. Not a point of pride (bad pun), absolutely not, buckets of shame in fact, but attached and worn all the time. I remember thinking it was just something about me, like my favorite colour. I think girls are pretty and appreciate their grace and some spark in them which men don't have, but my body is not attracted to them. If they're quiet and cute they're manipulative; If they want to talk they're needy; If they come onto me they're slutty.
It certainly sounds like I'm protecting myself from something, eh?
I speak like a misogynist sometimes because I think it's fun and ridiculous, but ... you know, but...
ANYWAY. Talking to this friend, I started going on about how I realized I didn't want to be married because of all the mindsets I had about relationship: man the home-builder, saviour of the family; wife the worker with ideas better than mine, emasculating me and growing bored and now I've driven this beautiful flower to it's own destruction...I give myself a lot of credit. Even dating, which is supposed to lead to the solidarity of marriage (see previous fun sentence), which is the goal, requires of me flowers, constant attention, careful pacing, both even-measure as well as wonderful spontaneity. I can't be all that, I'm not any of it I'm (sometimes) sure. I don't trust myself for anything. I doubt my skills, timing, ability, what God made me. So I doubt God, and run from both His face (peace, light) and simply walking everyday. I take respite in my head and turn away from the physical manifestation of what I most require: a soft, receiving heart.
Gay is easy. Guys are easy to win, and anyone who doesn't want me I don't want anyway. Girls are easy because I'm not worried about them - I usually define the relationship after I see the second downward glance and put-hair-back-in-place.
I hate gay because it's wrong - all mis-jive and vases acting like broomsticks, or vice-versa, or whatever: things trying to be something they're not. This is my perception and how my body, sometimes my heart, often my spirit, and my mind react to it. Love breaks down the judgmental barriers of wrong and right, and I'm learning to love myself. That's the second level of my judgement - the first being I guess I think God sucks and is always trying to shove a giant cock at me and I'm supposed to love it because I don't like lady parts and so there's no alternative. Abstinence. Asexuality. 

Because that makes so much sense.

I think I'm broken, and I think a strong man, my image of God, will hold and comfort me and fix things. Me. Fill my dearth. 
In my perception I cannot be that strong man for any woman because I'm broken. So I've renounced them because they only remind me of what I believe I'm not. 

Strangely, gays act like women because the natural order to get a man is to be tempting and ribbonesque and lispy. But gays go for men, not guys who act like women... Well, it's all fucked from the beginning, seriously, so it's no wonder it doesn't make sense. Or just not to me.

So I come back to God: having fallen so far and and am now such a goddamn sinner despite knowing the truth, the way that begets the way and perpetuates life...I'm here. God's here. Freedom is here to do this or go after that or bow my head or spend my time on these things. I think too much. I don't know what awakened love feels like, particularly the romantic one...ones...but I do know my love for people is tremendous even when it wavers. Which tells me something about God. Love: affection, well-being, well-wishing, help, comfort, sympathy, (as I age) empathy, grace&objectivity (the same), support, strength, enouragement, and (above all?) truth. No faking no lies no tempering or beating around the bush. It's speaking as is on your heart: learning to speak with and likewise TO RECEIVE in all those same facets and aspects because we practice: at every given moment we're shifting into and out of some of them and so we preactice. We LEARN to hear this truth with grace if we're not hearing it with our ears; we LEARN to listen with the heart. This is how Jed and I have grown closer: we stopped getting caught on words and started listening for the hope. We're struggling and making our way even though we know of better ways, but we settle, each differently, on the peace of where we are and what we're doing, expecting more and changing line upon line.

Ugh.

We settle. I think I meant 'rest', but ...ugh. This is the call right here. It's a man who answers it. The impetus to run into the light and the danger, not fearing, but expecting a fight for a worthy cause. God is worth fighting for. Worth fighting into. 'The industry' is not. Happiness is not - but satisfaction is, because in satisfaction lies things immoveable, from which peace and steady Joy emanate. Happiness is superficial - necessary but only a sign, indicative of the soul's at-restness.
Church as I see it is not a fight. It's spoon feeding and conceptualizing and for beginners - no judgement.
I'm still loathe to say that because of how I think Jed hears it, but I can't do it. It's like sitting in on a Spanish 1 class for me: yes, I can learn things, no, it's not appropriate - there's a mismatch, a discordance - I'm trying to put the resources God gave me back into him instead of making them increase. Talents risked, not buried - though there's a season for everything.
Taking your faith for a walk is ... the point. You can keep it at home as long as you like and it might be fine, but for it to run and grow in the sunshine and air, to get healthy&hale, hearty&robust is to for you to know it's alive! The energy that comes with that is incredibly invigorating, too, expanding your worldview, capacity for love because your blood is flowing into and out of and with people and your location but it's not attached to anything and you no longer fear because you don't have things to lose.

All good talk. They'll know me by my works.
Ugh, forget them: I'll know my faith by my works.

Redemption

We have got to talk about redemption.
Redemption means

1. To recover ownership of by paying a specified sum.

2. To pay off (a promissory note, for example).

3. To turn in and receive something in exchange.

4. To fulfill (a pledge, for example).

5. To convert into cash: redeem stocks.

6. To set free; rescue or ransom.

7. To save from a state of sinfulness and its consequences.

8. To make up for.

9. To restore the honor, worth, or reputation of.

It's a transition - the renaming of a thing from one category to a different, more positive one. 

When we are redeemed through Christ we are a commodity bought and paid for, no longer in debt to the world, no longer a perpetually laboring slave,  we become sons to the highest God. 

However, for a time we must remain under tutors and governors, learning the ways of this God - how he runs his land, his goods, his delegation, his eyesight, so that when we inherit (we are heirs, after all) we maintain his heart in all things. In order to be just like him, we have to unlearn everything we have learned up to this point.

Not that it was all a waste, quite the contrary: every single encounter, violation, transaction, and perception has gotten you to where you are so you can choose to invest in your inheritance now. This said, the unlearning is an unraveling of who you've been told you were, what you were told you're not, what you thought you could do, to what degree you succeed or fail, how you interacted, reacted, or responded to people in every day life. To take on a new identity you must put off the old one. Who we are is sorted through, clarified, and mixed again with a sturdier mortar than anyone on earth has, and we become more and more like Jesus, like God, and when we seem him as he is we will be just like him.

All this cleaning comes with a price though. You were purchased, remember. A cup full of identity cannot be filled with anything else. To make the transition to your Godly nature you've got to be separated from the things that do not serve you. Hebrews 4:12 says the word of God is sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. How can words do that? Well, God spoke existence into being and with a word binds up, tears down, constructs, and destroys. He's pretty articulate.

That said, man is a type and shadow of the earth. (Or is it the other way around?) The dirt of the ground is my body, the heavens are my higher self (light and freedom), the low places are my lesser self (darkness and bondage). ((  This is just for understanding, to show division between realms and mindsets. Really, man is spirit, a manifestation of the Faith of God set down so his sons could choose freedom and legitimate connection with him, and all the good or bad we experience in life are bent toward him, that higher purpose, so they're good and life is light. But we have to walk back into this connection through discipline, practice, lots of grace, and hope (expectation) that God will do what he's said he would. )) So the first place to begin walking in this 'Instructional to God-hood' is to understand the difference between soul and spirit.  ...

Freedom Christ

Who was Jesus ... is, sorry, who is Jesus.

The very name of Jesus has become so spiritualized and such an idol that we forget he was a man – like you and I – that he was tempted in EVERY WAY – like you and I – and that he somehow knew no sin. So what did he know? I want to know that.  Does CCU offer a class in that? Does Church?

God’s real. Who knew?

In EVERYTHING we’re under one of two masters: God or Satan (who's not God). Not-God has a stranglehold on all we know because he sits by the womb to consume men, so we serve him and the world and people and toil by the sweat of our brow until we hate and feel so thoroughly we’d never believe there could be another way. But Grace is to go free: Grace is to Change. I don’t have to remain what I have been. Or rather, I don’t have to remain who I have associated myself with. Satan told me I was gay. Then I said so. By my own confession I moved into this mode of living that changed my stature, my perception of my relationship with my dad, my ability to have male friends, the very things I thought I could be good at. Simply by adopting that frame of mind, that perception of WHO I AM, all my world turned into something pre-fabricated. Well, until something told me otherwise.
Perception is all of life: your boss tells you to do something and you get punchy because you don’t want to OR you do it gladly because YOU’RE THERE TO DO WHAT HE TELLS YOU. There’s life everywhere and we find ourselves outside of it more often than not because of the eyesight we've taken on. God's way is peace, and when you don’t have or can’t find peace – there you are. Located. So where is peace in those situations? God doesn’t vary -  he isn’t moved by your hellegiance. (I made that myself) He’s wroth with Satan whom you (I) have taken up with, and he comes to destroy Satan and his minions whenever we cry out. So he comes with fire to separate us from his/our enemies and we think he’s killing us because we so find ourselves in these things. Example:

Me: I’m gay.

Father in Faith: No you’re not.

Me: … No really.  Quite gay.

FiF: Mmm No. I mean, you can be if you want to, but why let that rule you?

Me: Rule me? I can’t help it! Why would anyone ever choose this?

Fif: Different reasons. What we choose is arbitrary; freedom is universal.

See the offense there? Rather than drawing out understanding from a man I trust with my life I sit and dig my heals in. All it takes is a ‘what do you mean?’ with a desire to know GOD (read: my self, freedom,peace, gentleness, longsuffering, spirit of self control, etc.).  God Is. Hence: I Am. So what are we? Small and temporal, wormy, disgusting, really really base? Uh...maybe. But Jesus died for us, so we're not that bad. He also called us brothers. God calls us his children. Since when can a father despise his children without first despising himself? Does God despise himself? I think not. My point is that he’s closer and lovinger than we have capacity for. But that’s why faith grows.

Go the Distance

I have often dreamed
Of a far off place
Where a hero's welcome
Will be waiting for me
Where the crowds will cheer
When they see my face
And a voice keeps saying
This is where I'm meant to be

I will find my way
I can go the distance
I'll be there some day
If I can be strong
I know every mile
Will be worth my while
I would go most anywhere
To feel like I belong

Down an unknown road
To embrace my fate
Though that road may wander
It will lead me to you
And a thousand years
Would be worth the wait
It might take a lifetime
But somehow I'll see it through

And I won't look back
I can go the distance
And I'll stay on track
No I won't accept defeat
It's an uphill slope
But I won't lose hope
Till I go the distance
And my journey is complete
But to look beyond the glory is the hardest part
For a hero's strength is measured by his heart

Like a shooting star
I will go the distance
I will search the world
I will face its harms
I don't care how far
I can go the distance
Till I find my hero's welcome
Waiting in your arms...

I will search the world
I will face its harms
Till I find my hero's welcome
Waiting in your arms






It's called 'Herculean Strength' for a reason,
but just a little faith...

filiali ties

If my brother is hurting, I am hurting.
I didn't realize this until now. So I pray for settling, that the pain be transformed into healing; that the pieces fall to rest in close company, solid and fixed with no gaps.

Tongues of Fire

27.10.12

I sat in the dark and was filled and bullied with winds inside me. I lifted my head upward and yelled and I flew into pieces.

I was wracked with emotions: big slimy ones and huge red slippery ones, enormous green heavy things.  I couldn’t handle them. I was filled with helium that was rocking and needed attention.  I sat down and lifted up my hands. My head broke open and a wind and smoke came in, pushed apart my halves and sifted out the debris in me. I confessed I wasn’t my own, even the thoughts the emotions stemmed from were not me. The smoke passed over my hand and left bullets, teeth, small bones. And the emotions were lifted. 

There was still weight. I was cracked open again and a giant tongue slid into the crevasse, past my brain and heart to the center of me where things start. The tongue was warm and it filled me – I was an ear and it was speaking to me. I could hear his voice. The tongue became fire and burned and burned – it remained and was lit on the oil of me. 

I was rocking and couldn’t shake something. A voice began in my core and from the roots of the earth, it grew in a steady roar that shook the room, the world, it was my voice and the sound of everything and it developed into the words ‘YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW STRONG MY LOVE IS’.