2.15.84

to my brother on his 22nd birthday....i hope tonight finds you happy and surrounded by friends. you're the best brother a guy could have. there's not a day that goes by that i don't think of you. even if we don't get to talk too often, except on the weekends. i hope i've done you proud, becuase i couldn't be more proud of you. thank you for who you are. for what you've been. for what you will be. i love you bro.

factions

It's not really anyone's business, but I vote Democrat more often than not. It's not that I particularly align myself with that party on all issues, but I find that my goals and ideals line up more often with the Democratic candidate for any particular position.

But as I'm sitting here on a Sunday morning, watching the head of the Democratic Party, Howard Dean, spew venom on national television (even if it is venom that I mostly agree with), I'm struck with how much I hate politics; how divisive they are; and how, like religion, politics is something that is meant to unite us but often fails so miserably.

But to me, it just seems like a big blame game and the winner is the one who can completely cover his/her opponent in shit and avoid being avalanched themselves. Is there really a heart in all of this? Where are the politicians who care and aren't just out for their own agenda?

I guess it shouldn't surprise me that men and women in leadership so often fail their constituents. Power does a terrible thing to man...it inflates the ego; it expands the self-righteousness and gives faux credibility to the belief that because you represent other people, you're more important than said people.

I don't even know why I'm spending time writing about this...probably because it pisses me off so much. And as a Christian, I struggle with how much I should really care. Because, really, this is all gonna burn sooner or later anyway and I have lives to touch and people to build relationships with and that should be all I worry about.

But I can't shake my Earthly connections; I can't shake the feeling that we're watching some giant orchestrated production and in the next act, the villians, Iran-North Korea-Russia-whoever, will be introduced and then it gets really ugly. As in an inhabitant here, albeit just a short-time visitor, I'm compelled to care about this Earth even though others who share my faith don't feel that way.

Why is that? Is God displeased at me for caring about what happens in the world? Does He wish I could turn all that attention to Him and off of the news? I don't know. I can't believe that He wouldn't want me to be aware of what was going on if I'm still striving to accomplish my mission in the mean time.

And what does all of this mean really? I don't know. I'm just writing because Howard Dean was on TV and he was annoying the hell out of me. And I needed to say some of these things because we, as Christians, don't always talk about these things....

I've noticed that there are often three different approaches to the world's news by Christians...

1) the Apocalypse approach wherein Christians watch the news nightly hoping to connect the jigsaw piecse of end times. They want to see how Israel is being persecuted, how the European Union is striving for a one-world government and any technological advances that could be used later to bar code every man, woman and child on earth.

2) the Social Justice approach wherein Christians strive to help those who cannot help themselves. This is a group that isn't so concerned with their own safety and well-being, so much as helping those who cannot help themselves. This is a group that gives of their time and money to help those who are underpriveleged, underrepresented or otherwise forgotten.

3) the personal relationship approach wherein all of this world stuff is secondary to the building of personal, meaningful relationships. That is not to say that these people cannot partake in activites that have social significance, but their focus is on building these one-on-one relationships that grow into something special and from there, foster healthy Christian conversion.

I feel like, in my life, these are the three groups of Christians that I know. Of course, I'm omitting some other factions that have formed and grossly over-simplifying the whole thing. But I find that I know people who fit into all three (and sometimes more than one of ) these categories.

I just find it interesting that we can all have different frames of reference and views as to how we're supposed to spend our time. Some want to wait for Jesus to return...some want to get out and help others...and some want to know all the intimate details of another person's life. We all have different views and sometimes it's hard to reconcile these things.

I've over-extended my ambition for this morning so I think further discussion will have to wait for another time....

Thanks for reading.

Much love to you all

you are blood

i can tell that you'd stick a fork in your thigh
just to feel something different
the look in your eyes tells me that something is amiss...

on the paper, beside marital status, it reads 'separated'
perhaps that's where the hurt lies
my heart ached for you when i read it
because you could have just written 'single' and satisfied the question

i realized today that you're 33 years old
hardly the young guy i still picture you as in my head
we didn't have much interaction when i was younger
but i still wanted to be you...you were so cool

and you still are, but you've lost yourself
you're still the one who makes everyone laugh
but it seems as if you haven't laughed yourself in ages

i wonder what it's like
inside that head of yours
filled with fears and phobias
voices telling you about dust, and disease, and incurable things

you're so fragile
i wonder if everyone else sees it?
do they realize that you need love?
what am i going to do about it?

am i just going to write on this screen?
am i going to pretend that i don't see the hurt?
no.
never.

we are not the result of our parents' mistakes
we are the result of something more special....
something other-worldly.
we are not defined, i say, by our failures
we are not confined to our boxes if we so choose
what you can't see is what lays directly in front of my eyes...

someone special. someone extraordinary.
just waiting to break out of the fear.
waiting to reclaim something that was taken from him too long ago

i believe that you will find what you're looking for.
i will help you if i can. i will take your hand and guide you, if i can.

i will do these things because i want to.
i will do these things because you are family.

because you are blood.

rorrimweivraer

what's thought but not said
is that we're praying for resolution
what's thought but not said
is that we're hoping someone makes a move
what's thought but not said
is that the ball is in your court

we've all sat around holding our breath
we knew this situation was long overdue
but somehow its arrival caught us (me you whoever) off guard

but i thought it important to share
how difficult it was
to get up in front of a group of people
and try to represent the missing

there was a weight on our shoulders
we're lucky it was lifted
because it threatened to pound us into the ground

as if the eye balls aren't piercing enough in that place
and the accusatory silence not deafening enough
perhaps they sat around waiting for the fall
how morbidly sweet that may have been for them
and then they saw the crumbled remnants,
the only ones left standing on that particular day....
albeit on wounded souls and shaky knees

i wonder what they thought
surely they surmised sickness was to blame
and in a way they were right
pride, ego, hurt, self-doubt, gossip, jealousy, arrogance
it's all sickness and we were all infected

should we have been up there in the first place?

i hope, they didn't care about us and
turned their attention elsewhere
perhaps the worship was still strong that morning
even though my attitude surely sucks sometimes
and even though it's hard to tune in when
there's so much static in the air

and maybe things were out of our control
and the warriors of prayer said the right things
and the sky opened up
and for a second, we were acceptable
in all of our beautiful ugliness

i would delete these words
if i had a little more strength
because leaving these words out there
opens doors and wounds and ideas that might not exist anymore

but for the sake of documentation,
for a time when this is all in the rearviewmirror
i thought it important to share my momentary,
flashing synapses

my oh-so-brief exile into the world of self-pity.

it's been a long day
but our tomorrow
is on the other side
of the darkness
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