LaterComesQuickly

Happy Monday to all! Let us start off the work week with some thinking, doesn’t that sound fun?

In the last few months, I have been studying Buddhism off and on and as the majority of you know, I have been (and continue to be) a Christian since my adolescence. I am not studying Buddhism to convert to any new religion but instead I find that many of the concepts are helpful in my attempts to understand Christ’s teachings better.

Sidenote: Ghandi once said that “God is Truth”, but then later said that “Truth is God”. I believe that there are universal truths that are consistent in every pure religion, that these truths are laws as sure as gravity and physics. I believe that the teachings of Christ and Buddha can compliment each other to the benefit of those that practice either.
Read more

Busy as all junk. Well that is not completely correct. Busy and distracted. I started all these blogs, a webcomic and it is a lot to maintain. I am trying to learn how to maintain a consistent energy level, but I think at the moment i am losing that battle. I had lost weight, gained it back. Was getting up at 7a daily….now i am struggling to get out of bed at 10. There is a definite ebb and flow to my life, but i haven’t got it mapped out just yet. I feel like I could be 5 times as productive but I need to find a pattern that works.

I will get there. Give me another week of this, and i will get all hyper to change my whole life again.

A bit back I picked up a 50mm fixed lens for my lowly Digital Rebel. With an f-stop of 1.8, it may finally solve a lot of my issues in darker settings so i thought church would be the perfect place to take it for a roll.

All i have to say is when you can focus on someones nose and their jaw is out of focus…i LURV that depth of field.

Click here (or the photography link to the right) to view!

This is not a soliloquy
This is a plea
To be heard over the noise
And the shining city lights
The idle talk and the lonely nights
This is a call to understand
Something about the human race
Something that I’ve learned from grave
The ability to live

I don’t know all the answers
But I swear I’m trying as hard as I can
To find that light that people talk about
There’s some things left unsaid
When they shove you out into the world
I know theres better things than life
Than living without dreams

Have you ever woken up
With a sense of dread
About the coming day
That is going to be another of the same
And you’re the only one to blame
Wishing there was more
That life was like movies gleam
And less like a stifled scream
It wasn’t supposed to be like this

a scattered few in empty pews
is this a kingdom or is this a crisis
fire faint and flickered flame
give us warmth or hope or sight or shame
a call to cry until voices break
prayers past to point of shameful faith
its been so long since we’ve seen real
its been so long since we had to feel

whats the point of believing
if belief’s become the purpose
we fall down, we fall down
is faith an opiate for the masses
when does it cost something more
we fall down, we fall down

i’ve played the fool and my petty games
these failures hurt maybe you feel the same
i’m tired of looking in the mirror
and wishing the person looking back would change
hand to plow to golden cow
passive and just standing in the way
the tv teaches the gate is wide
whats the part that comes after the pride

the echoes from my words
break the walls we stand within
i try to say “i’m sorry”
but the echoes break again
crying and disjointed
i’m losing touch with what i’ve held
faith becomes soft slow suicide
like tossing pebbles down an endless well

speak no more, color silence gold
face the mirror and face the fool
don’t speak again, just ignore the need
become the knees you fall to when you believe.
be quiet when you bleed

my problems seem to multiply
by the time my voice hits my ears
it doesn’t take too many words
to face off with my fears
i try to say so much
because i so fear being misunderstood
awash in all my insecurities
words don’t do the drowning any good

i can’t promise anything but love
but you’ve heard my voice too much today
miles make the lips so difficult to replace
so maybe memories can suffice…

song notes: i am not necessarily the best lyricist, but i usually have a specific reference in mind for every line i write. some of it is very easy to figure out (even if you don’t know me) and some is very personal and specific. i believe i should explain one piece of this song so that no one gets a wrong idea about my faith or my perceptions of God.

“faith becomes soft slow suicide
like tossing pebbles down an endless well”

i was having a conversation with a friend, concerning the the situations surrounding this song and we were talking about faith. sometimes faith is an empowering thing…and other times it feels like jumping out of a plane with no parachute. i made a reference about it feeling like throwing rocks down a well that has no bottom. at times, faith feels a little mysterious, some deep thing that humans can’t understand, much as it would be difficult to understand why you don’t hear these pebbles hitting water or the bottom of the well.

“soft, slow suicide:” well, at first it was just a line that kind of wrote itself. but as i think about it more, its true. faith doesn’t kill you, but it is a process that requires you to lay down more of yourself each time you exercise it. in situations closest to your heart, it really can feel like suicide, because all the workings of your mind and the passions of your heart want you to act one way, but your faith guides you down a different path…you just “killed” yourself and went against your nature.

a more amusing trait i’ve noticed about how i write is that i frequently switch who i am directing my words to in my songs, sometimes line by line. usually its either God, myself, the listener or a specific person that this song is to or about. i may say “you” and mean a person, the next line, “you” means God and the next i might just be talking to myself. i said i had a purpose in what i write…not that it makes perfect sense…

i find in my life, moments that are crystalline in the clarity they bring yet are somehow lost in moments or days to the weight of the world. my attempt to even write this has been plagued by such inconveniences. these moments illuminate in a light different than just an “a-ha” but bring to mind every dreamed accomplishment and provides the will/ability and confidence that they are not only plausible but completely promised in delivery. analytical thought renders them laughable, but they breathe hope to the spirit which, in my experience, only comes from Spirit. theses moments fill my chest with a inflated weight that requires the outpouring of all things spiritual and creative. they ring of the Divine greater than the sum of time spent within the walls of the Church, yet i recognize the presence of God as surely as any whisper of worship at the moment of His revelation. i find them in a movie or a song. i hear them in the notes of music that ring in my ears moments before falling asleep, that i could never play or conceive while awake with instrument at hand. i hesitate to call it something as simple as inspiration because inspiration itself pales in sheer depth and scope of one second in this mode.

i will never claim to have a very enlightened understanding of God, yet i know the echo of His voice from the times that i’ve felt Him lead me. and these moments resonate with the Character of Him that i know. they require me to continually aspire towards my greatest character and to achievements that, in the time of common days, would never seem possible.

i mentioned finding them in created things, which may seem tainted as they are not found in direct communion with the creator. perhaps this is by spiritual lacking in me or by some purpose completely unknown to me. the drive to write all of this comes from a movie that i saw today, the name of which can go unmentioned not because of a need to hide the source of my inspiration, but because it ultimately doesn’t matter. there is a type of movie or a type of song that inspires me because beyond the script, the actors, the ticket sales or the nature of the artist, there is an underlying current of something spiritual that touches on the nature of man and his aspiration to realize life in its truest form. a silence that comes after every word that bleeds to be spoken has been spoken. the instrument that is quieted when the composition of heaven has been realized. the brush that is set aside when the masterpiece has been finished. not with ego or self-appreciation but when even the earthly creator whose hands, will or talent has been utilized in the creation process, stands back and silently worships at the feet of the Divine inspiration.

i do not have these moments, as nothing i have created has ever carried such weight….but i come so close to a moment where i can feel the levee straining under the pressure of some river of inspiration that rages to be freed. my desire to be awash in the flood comes not from a wanting to have something to hold up and say “i did this” but because there is some primal need to let it go through me and create something that brings worship to God through it. not for petty pseudo-spiritual motivations that are ultimately the pride that masquerades as spirituality, but by something that words do not and cannot convey. it is the worship that i cannot find in the half hour before the sermon starts.

when i wake up tomorrow, this feeling, which fades in every passing moment, may be forgotten but perhaps in reading these words i can find that spark again. my true aspirations in this mode are not things that i have pondered and decided upon but are things that i feel driven towards, often with no reason. in this i feel that perhaps it is time to remove whatever limiters than i have any control over; those being fear, insecurity, inability, duality in nature, perfectionism, an attempt to control perception, procrastination, comparison, ego, lack of faith, lack of confidence, selfishness and . in my experience every time God has required something of me, it was up to me to do everything in my power to follow the leading in my heart and it is at that point that God begins to work. this is both the thing i praise God most for and at this moment is my most sincere prayer.

Ah, yes the beginning. Lets start with some appropriate lyrics courtesy of The Polyphonic Spree

My Feelings
Are more
Than I can let by
Or not
More than you’ve got
Just follow the day
Follow the day and reach for the SUN!
You don’t see me fly into the red one more you’re nuts
Just follow the seasons and find the time
Reach for the bright side
You don’t see me fly into the red one more you’re done
Just follow the day
Follow the day and reach for the SUN!
Just follow the day
Follow the day and reach for the SUN!
You don’t see me fly into the red – one more you’re nuts
Just follow the seasons and find the time
Reach for the bright side
You don’t see me fly into the red – one more you’re done
Just follow the day
Follow the day and reach for the SUN!
Just follow the day
Follow the day and reach for the SUN!
Just follow the day
Follow the day and reach for the SUN!