Nebraska

What is hope? Does need and want necessitate hope? Do the hopeless have the power to hope again? And those that are aware of the hopelessness that is brought by satiation, and yet still are too numb to hope, do they have a way to hope again? It feels impossible to pray. The words are too heavy to take flight. They sit at the end of my tongue with no proper mechanism to transport them out of my mouth. Hopelessness. I find a way to calm the gentle stirring inside my heart. I can read books on the Sabbath and about the prophetic imagination. I can talk to friends or quote poetry to suite a situation. I can write inexpressible thoughts in a pocket journal to alleviate the pain. I can wish upon new friendship to dull the pain of dying senses. I can run, but I can't hide, that to me at least, is the most obvious.

I WISH I COULD HEAR MYSELF, SCREAM.

And this will all end tomorrow, when I awake to find a new day waiting at my bed. It will begin again when I let time fall victim to spatial desires. I will doubt myself only to be the most prideful person I see that day, and will learn to stare myself through the deceitfulness of the mirror...

I do not live a horrible life. I live an overcrowded life with thoughts of revolution and domestication. I prostitute my soul for my ego and then loathe myself because of my inability to override the whims of my will. I think about what it means to build an altar and dig a well. I also think about how not moving is better than moving. Not addressing the unrest in my heart is better than undressing my heart. I think of cool sentences to switch around only so that people will look at me as someone who can manipulate words into clever phrases that fail to do justice to the issue of the heart. I write so I can reread this and pat my own back. The heaviness of desire is too much to bare. If only I could change right?

...if only I could be better... Oh, I might agree that God takes us as we are, and I tell myself that after I blame HIM for the way I am, only to feel guilty for my inability to simply believe.

And you know the times that you really do feel humbled and at peace, those days where the impossibility of change only makes you hope more...those days are so few and far between that the chasm seems to lengthen. An abyss has formed inside my heart - faith, hope, and love do not remember the quiet walks in the garden they once took together. Compassion and Justice remember only better times.

...Or so it all seems in my heart. Pessimism feels so adequate when you think of how to describe this. I don't know if I like that word. Maybe I like to leave it nameless so that when it comes again I can wallow in self-pity just enough that someone notices and pays me some warped compliment that I think will set me free.

I crucified you. I yelled it in the streets of my heart. I reached back through time and turned that palm branch into a veil to hide the gruesomeness of your crucifixion. I denied you three times. I ran to Ninevah. I condemned the adulterous women. I received new life at the well. and I died in order to gain you.

The pure fact that I exist causes me to remember why I hate you and love you at the same time. Why my hate is not really hate, but simply disguised confusion.

Can you cause me to see again? I think I have lost my way, Jesus, I am just a small child that winces when he sees the light - especially when that light causes him to let go of his fear of the darkness.

Frankie Welfare Boy Age Five

my thoughts linger like impossible
so improbable that i could carry the world
Atlas, you must have something I dont.

when the autumn leaves no longer sway
making room for the winter breeze
when people make profits the only way to live
we are reduced to producing machines

the radio plays in my ear,
I'm reminded of times that I wasnt there
when life plays before my eyes
I wish I were older in years.

I wish for joy to turn to tears.





...yeah

Oh the joy of procrastination! I am supposed to be writing a paper right now. Anyways, read A Timbered Choir by Wendell Berry.

"Year by year man's liberties are trampled under foot at the bidding of corporations and trusts, rights are invaded and law perverted. In all ages wherever a tyrant has shown himself, he has always found some willing judge to clothe that tyranny in the robes of legality, and modern capitalism has proven no exception to the rule."

"Repression or oppression never yet succeeded in crushing the truth or redressing a wrong..."

-Samuel Gompers, "Letter on Labor in Industrial Society." Forum, September 1894

Husker Du why do I feel so blue?

Walking around with your head in the clouds
Makes no sense at all
Sell yourself short, but you're walking so tall
Makes no sense at all
Is it important? You're yelling so loud
Makes no sense at all
Walking around with your head in the clouds
Makes no sense at all
Makes no difference at all

I don't know why you want to tell me
When I'm right or when you're wrong
It's the same thing, in your mind, the only time
I'm right is when I play along

You concern yourself with evidence
It's evident to me
Well you say you've got the tiger by the tail
But I don't see these things that way

Change?

"Honor bound to protect freedom" is what read on the sign outside of Guantanamo Bay. I am relieved to hear that president-elect, Barack Obama, will close the prison camp, allowing all prisoners to go on trial before an American Civil Court. I really hope things change...

He is not our savior, but I really do hope things change.

went to The Fest 7 - awesome
saw Coalesce - awesome
now really into Bridge and Tunnel - double awesome

"You are a Christian only so long as you constantly pose critical questions to the society you live in ... so long as you stay unsatisfied with the status quo and keep saying that a new world is yet to come."

- Henri Nouwen

this is an interesting quote, but i am still trying to decide how i feel about it. Apart of me says yes this is right, the other half says there is some key parts.

I have worn the same red hat for so long...

"a walk is all that i need;
this ambiguity feels like a knife in me.
sixteen blocks without any thanks,
i feel that i think the cannons and tanks.
all of these wars that i try to explain get defused so many times so i play with my shoes,

i've learned to untie them with my eyes"

I am 19 now and I don't want to be any younger. Getting older was just a myth

Just A Thought...

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy.
- Francis of Assisi


I'm learning that leaving is an important part of life. That God is the most radical and loving being that wants to renew his creation and bring them into His completeness.

I want to bne actively involved in all that I can

"Verse and Voice"

Alas for those who devise wickedness
and evil deeds on their beds!
When the morning dawns, they perform it,
because it is in their power.
They covet fields, and seize them;
houses, and take them away;
they oppress householder and house,
people and their inheritance.

- Micah 2:1-2

There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do.

- Freya Stark
The Lycian Shore

Worship Him Where He Is Found

I am thinking about taking time off to hopefully go to the middle east and gain perspective and watch the world. I said that I am HOPEFULLY going to, this is a big HOPEFULLY...i dont know how any of it will pan out.

songs that rule as of right now:
Psalters - Banner
Leatherface - New York State and Speak in Tongues
Inkwell - Shine So Bright
Sunny Day Real Estate - Seven and In Circles
Twelve Hour Turn - Water Under Bridges Rise and Like A Cool Breeze Blowing Through Your Wallet

Brian and I practiced the songs tonight, it went really well. I am really really into it. I think Yield is going to be the name of the band, but I dont know.

anyone know where to get a cheap bass head?

I want to experience the love of God so much that I am changed by it. I want to see all things reconciled to He Who Loves Me. I want to see it all come down tonight...

"people like you and I will never know the easy way..."

& Serenade

Will you come and what will I say
Oh I have been so distant and unhappy
Like I could disappear

When I was a boy I saw things
That no one else could see
So why am I so blind at twenty-two
To the hope that is all around me
Filling up this room

On the road on my own
Waiting for the words to fall from your tongue
Into my ears

When I was a boy I could hear
Symphonies in seashells
So why am I so deaf at twenty-two
To the sound of the driving snow
That drives me home to you

-Mineral

This sums up how I feel most of the time. I feel a sense of loss. I feel anxious, like I will never stop being stressed or worried about school. I feel like school is the most important thing right now, and in actuality it is the farthest thing from it.

WHY IS IT SO HARD TO LIVE LIFE?

It looks as if everything I thought being out of high school would be like is far from the truth.

I am desperate for renewal; I am desperate for peace.

please do not forsake me.

Trompe Le Monde and existence

I have new friends at school. We spend a good deal of time together.

We now have theme nights... tomorrow is Mexican night and we are making tacos.


I am still battling between feeling at home and far from any form of purposefulness.

A little side note... I have been getting a lot of really awesome music lately and I am excited about it...but on the negative side, I have been really far away from a lot of things that I want to accomplish while I am down here.

listen to Leatherface, HWM, Twelve Hour Turn, Pygmy Lush, and the Pixies...

-yeah

Jesus, I don't want to be angry anymore.

We can move in the direction of justice, but if our personal relationships don’t become more human, we haven’t moved in the direction of the reign of God and, in the long run, we will discover that our point of arrival is just another form of tyranny.

- Arturo Paoli

Imagination

"Our culture is competent to implement almost anything and to imagine almost nothing." From The Prophetic Imagination by Walter Brueggemann.

So what are we going to do?

learn to imagine before we implement.

imagine....take back our captive minds.

Great Sadness

No matter how far to the left or to the right that I move, my brokenness always seems to follow. No matter how close in proximity to the Father I am (or think I am), it always rears its ugly head. My lust for independence, for inalienable rights, has created a chasm between the Creator Who Is Always Near and me, who seems to run as far the other way as I can go (which in reality is probably a lot shorter of a distance than I think). I am so perplexed by the love of one who did not deserve death, yet gave himself to be sin so that I could once again be righteous in my Father's sight. I know that this stuff isn't new to me, but in a way, in a much more real way, it is. What I thought at one time I knew so well, I realize that I never knew, and will never fully know. I deeply long for an intimate relationship with the one who paid a high price for my life (I still feel that I must constantly try and buy it back with my ill attempts at holiness).

"as deep calls out to deep".... I feel it within my heart, the constant whispering of forgiveness and reconciliation, redemption and acceptance, love and peace, mercy and grace. Although I must admit that it is often drowned out by my own screaming, the screaming that is chocked full of lies about damnation and loneliness, about my life not being redeemable, about HIM not loving me (and often I believe it, and I believe that often times we mistake what is loud for what is true).

The Fourth of July recently passed. All I can say that we must remember the Iraqi children who are not safely shooting off fireworks (you might say, of course not, they don't celebrate July 4th... whatever), or going to school, or playing with their families and friends, Many of them do not have those things anymore. I will not celebrate American imperialism, or the flag. I will pledge my allegiance to the only one who can bring peace, Yeshua.


I have much to learn. My heart is a mess.

When all you can see is yourself...

a thought from Abraham Joshua Heschel

"In regard to cruelties committed in the name of a free society, some are guilty, while all are responsible."

I feel your heart beating, I feel your feet moving, and I hear you voice coaxing me forward. I just stand here and act as a point of reference for your movement. I am greatly decieved and yet you poor your grace upon me lavishly...

I can hear you whisper (the unforced rhythms of grace...)

To believe.

I Love You Both (there should be a picture of an iraqi also...)

Gen 1:27

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Our world is in a reoccuring act of decreation.

maybe instead of writing in here, he calls me to be silent, to listen for the still small voice...

"We believe that the Kingdom of God is real, not an abstraction. We believe that Jesus is our king, not our figurehead"

taken from TheJesusManifesto.com

i am completely lost in trying to find myself.

i am trying to lose my life...

Karl Barth, The Ontological Argument, and Neo-Orthodoxy

Tonight I am gently reminded by my father that knowledge puffs up. I can spend much of my time in the ways of the Pharisees and Scribes but eventually I will find the glorious nature of the empty self. I seek my own praise, and I believe that I deserve it. But this is not the way of the Father. Many times we take truth as something to be mastered by our own minds, but as I spend time in reflection of moments with my earthly father (who does a good job of warming my heart with the simplicity of Christ) I realize that Truth must master me, so that eventually the Kingdom of God will be planted like a mustard seed in my heart. I do not say this to hint that I do not desire academic knowledge, but the halls of academia only traverse so far, and rightly so. My heart weighs heavy at the mention of the "still small voice" of He Who Came Before Me. The silence of His ways speaks a multitude of Truth over my finite mind. I can sit here for the rest of my days speaking of His glory (much of the time secretly dwelling and selfishly loving mine) and grace but never truly living it. I pray I find myself in His will and not in my own.

I truly desire the unforced rhythms of Grace. I want to know the held breath of hope.

Today i understood what he meant when he said, "how will i lay down in green grass fields when my soul is so afraid to...rejoice?"

Me: growing up causes me to take deeper breaths
Baxter: the air is fresher when you do...

Gently remind me Lord, I believe I need it daily.

“For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.”- Luke 19:10

Embarrassment. What does it really mean? I read over some of my old writings and feelings of embarrassment flooded into my being. Why should that embarrass me? Why should I feel as though I ought to explain myself. Where does this sense of oughtness come from?

There a million thoughts rushing through my head and I cannot seem to catch one in order to express it. Reading what those around me write, I ask myself this question, "Who do I think I am?" I am no one. I cannot write like my peers, I cannot express my heart like the great writers before my time, I cannot pray a single concise thought. My whole entire mind is a wreck.

The only thing I can muster is complaint. Is that what I have boiled down to? Homework, procrastination, my life, my future, my past. Is it possible that my heart can have some other response besides confusion and frustration. For some reason it seems that life should consist of more than that.

Young Man Blues

I am the Pharisees, a hypocrite, a blind man. I have built a damn around my heart and it is too strong for me to knock it down. It is so large and daunting. Behind it lies pride and anger, malicious intent and lust. Prosiac walls stand strong againt creative redemption, or atleast the idea of it. But it is more than an idea. It is the shedding of blood, it is the remission of sin, it is the picking up of a similar cross and walking into death, to be raised in new life. It is writing this and testing my heart against the words, only to see that both are so shallow, so emerged in this world. I have been enculturated. I have whored myself with darkness. But there is a light. Where is it? The darkness seems so powerful, so vast, like an endless, grey, and monotonous sea. I think i can begin to see the light. I beg for the damn to be destroyed. "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me." Remove the veil.

I desire attention. I think of God as a lense in which I can better myself unto glory. I am a habitual sinner. I lust after sex. I am a murderer, an adulterer. I hate my brother. I rage. I am guilty of saying "raca" to my brothers and sisters.

Where can I learn to become good again? Because God feels so foreign to me. I feel like I am the exception to grace. I long for completion. Teach me surrender, O Lord. My dirty sould pants for Living Water. Remove the Veil! Remove the Veil! Remove the Veil!

Teach me, for I am just a child.

Soy Bacon Sandwhiches

Dear Wales,
I will have your crest tattoo'ed upon not just my chest, but also my soul.

Dear England,

I hope you don't hate the large amount of annoying high schoolers that will be roaming your streets.

So it is upon me already, my senior class trip. Joy manifesting itself in utter ignorance as my class roams helplessly through the streets of England and Wales. I hope we dont look as dumb as we are.


I still have half a paper to finish tonight, atleast it is only half.


Oatmeal Though #1

• Men with mustaches always do rational things (with illustration)
  
  

Ozzie smith is completely rational and awesome at baseball, should i say more?

"He has risen indeed"

First, a quote:

"We are overrun today with orthodox scribes, but the prophets, where are they? The hard voice of the scribes sounds over evangelicalism, but the Church waits for the tender voice of the saint who has penetrated the veil and has gazed with inward eye upon the wonder that is God."
- A.W. Tozer

So Tozer's question, that has also become my own question, is, "What hinders us?" And I do mean all of us...

Tozer suggests that it is the presence of the veil within our own hearts that keeps pur hearts from gazing at his wonderous beauty. The flesh has veiled our spiritual desires with the so called "self-life." But is that really true? Is there anything wrong with who we are? Is Christianity in opposition with the human ethic? A question that has recently been on my mind as I listen to bands such as Catharsis, Requiem, and From the Depths (which I recently witness play, and out of it came an interesting story). I cannot help but wonder these thoughts aloud, as well as ponder them in my heart. My initial reaction is that these changes which are to be evident in fellowship with Christ are opposed to our self. They are however not opposed to the new self we find in the presence of the Godhead. These inital reactions have "initially" become my final reactions, if that makes any logical sense.

I see in Tozer's writings something I do not have, but that I wish to have. This tender voice, I wish to be my voice. This desire and love of fellowship with He Who Created Me is something i have grown indifferent to. I can blame this world for the indifference, or I can accept this indifference as my own, as my sin, as my vice to hide the fact that I need utter surrender and transparency. And to be honest, it scares the living hell out of me. These words, they seem so "churchy" and that feels awkward to me. I do not yet know what to think about them, or if they should bother me. But regardless of diction, the heart is still there, and it pants for God like the deer pants for water. But where do these fears become obsolete, and do they ever? Where do I end and where does He begin?

"Promoting self under the guise of promoting Christ is currently so common as to excite little notice."

Tozer, again as they say, hits the nail on the head. And this time I cannot help but sense alot of myself in that quote. Alot of my self-interest and self-preservation, and to be completely honest, alot of my own pride. I am mastering the art of disguising myself under Christ. Not living complete in Him, but attempting to use his completeness to make my incompleteness sound complete. But that is not what I want. I do not want the cheapened version, because that is not at all what he offered me at the cross. He offered me Truth, for Truth was intrinsic to His very nature. And at the cross, and in the resurrection, God was made available. Now that the temple veil was broken, let's see if I can surrender the heart's veil. And in that, allow Yeshua to master the beast within, which we all know, He is fully capable of doing.

and from here, I go back to writing my history paper...



"Each morning without you, I die."