February 11, 2006

Truth?
Sometimes God implements themes into our lives because we simply cannot seem to see the point He is trying to get across. Looking at it after He has thrown the same thing at you from multiple angles is so interesting--especially when you realize how long it has taken you to finally get it. The current theme is honesty--in who we are and what we do. Christianity has become such an image thing where nobody is real with one another and so we feel so much like failures when it seems like everyone else has "it all together." The Christian image bears little or no verisimilitude. Truth is macabre and so to share it has become a faux pas. Truth will shatter your paradigm, it will break you but you will be so much better for it. So this theme had been running through my life and I was completely cognizant of the fact that I should do something about it. I had proven to be rather adroit in successfully dodging the issue continuously until I grew weary and could hear the ricochets coming closer and closer. Then I heard a speaker talk about how we are so incredibly bound by the gyves of Christian image that we cannot even be honest with God anymore. I was astonished, I could not believe that he was speaking on the topic of honesty because it had been the very thing I had been talking about with people and thinking about. I have come to realize that I had not known how to talk to God for a long time because I did not feel worthy of His grace and had to work out my mistakes on my own before I could approach Him in humility. I thought once I had accomplished that then I could attain the holiness that everyone else seemed to bear. Malarkey--or as some as you might prefer to say, BS!--we are all fallen, we all struggle and we need to share in that together. Quit perpetuating these fallacies.

Where am I going with this, what is my agenda? I have none but to share this self realization because I know that I have little to share that will be perceived as a new thought that moves people to change and am fully aware that this is not a new thought. Just one of those times where something in my life moved for once.

I recognize the banality of the subject as Christians are always seeking to inspire one another and write formulaic answers to stale faith, but how can I help but write of something that has touched me?

A question to end with: when we feign an image and our struggles are so surreptitious, does our worship, prayer and praise become adulation rather than true adoration? I just wonder how we can really fully worship God if we are dishonest withourselves, the community, and Him? Maybe I am wrong, but I see it as showing contempt by giving a blemished sacrifice. I had this thought after reading Malachi.

April 29, 2005 - Tenuous

This theme had been swimming in my head, but it was incomplete until the rediscovery of the words of Sophocles. *No relation between these words and this powerful film.*




Tenuous



For Ralos



The prophet is brother to the heretic

One is an artist the other a poet

Both make clear through obscurity



They speak of what no other know

Whispers of truth in their ear

Only to proclaim ambiguous

They can do no more

Blessed are those who seek

Do not ask

Do not ask

He has done his task

To coerce him to explain

Is to pluck a butterfly’s wings

For he knows no more than you

To shut him up

Is to cloak the earth from darkness



Be not fooled by erudition

Be not entranced by esoteric metaphor

He knows less than you

He seeks only to evoke confusion

To intimidate to submission

The blind leads his trusting disciples

Close not your eyes

Strain your ears for what you cannot hear

Listen for the hollow echo within his soul

“Whoever thinks he alone possesses intelligence,

the gift of eloquence, he and no one else,

and character too…such men, I tell you,

spread them open—you will find them empty.” (from Antigone by Sophocles)



One is an artist the other a poet

Both make clear through obscurity

The prophet is brother to the heretic

Tenuous is the line that divides

Oft they don each other’s raiment

One suffocates the truth

The other grants vision through his kaleidoscope



The line is tenuous. Which are you.

March 04, 2005 - Poem

Teach me know when to be content
Teach me when to yearn for more
I know each has its time

Show me the balance in the tension--
Prevent me from tepid stagnation
Protect me from ungrateful dissatisfaction

Each side pulls me
So I do my best to walk the middle, sometimes I lean
This is wrong, I must commit

I am fearful of either side
I know both require sacrifice
I cannot weigh these nebulous things

I wish you would just give me a shove
So I would fall to the side I must go
I know, I know--this is the beautiful gift of free will

Wisdom, guidance, peace, clarity
These I know you give
Please, please--share them.

January 23, 2005 - Taunting, Transiet, Terror

Taunting Transient Terror

The ghost whispers gentle words
Are they elements of truth
Or words meant to be unheard
Or do they say sooth*?

Oh you apparition of the mind
Do you speak of what ought to be
Or are your intentions unkind
With haste bring answers to set free

Ghoul of unsatisfaction why do you haunt
A fleeting thought thou are naught
Thy gentle words pierce and plague
Through a labyrinth of confusion they parade

Writhing wraith of cognition
Do you behold a clear vision
Eschew security, logic, wisdom, reason
To risk following a heart that seems to change with season?

Ethereal eidolon embodies extinct existance
Endless visitation of what was never born
Suffocating grip on to which you have no grasp
Over what is unreal you bring me to mourn

Scourging specter speak
Give me reason to listen
Differentiate--whimsical perfidy and painful honesty
Must what is good come to end?

Perilous phantom I await
For you to determine fate
Your answers so evasive
Yet your presence so pervasive
Will your shadow slowly fade
Or to reality incarnate?

*Sooth as in soothsayer, not soothe as in to calm*