It’s not wrong to be right. It’s not wrong to be left. We find what is wrong is to hate our neighbor for where they have landed. Know what you believe, why you stand, and most importantly what got you there. If it’s fear, think twice. If it’s anger, think twice. If it’s hatred, start over.
Love each other, and consider all things with humility, not with the fragile pride that’s so easy to wear in our day. Pride is in fashion. Be humble and wear the oppression you feel, bear its weight and become stronger. The biggest oppressor is within our wayward hearts. Look inward and evaluate. Be honest, and let go of anything that shrouds uncomfortable truths about what controls our action.
Freedom is where we fight our self-interest, taking on what your brothers and sisters presently cannot, not by mandate, but by the genuine conviction of character. Show others that there is strength to be found when we fight our battles not by disparaging others, but in being salt and light, and a bulwark of courage in the whirlwind of chaos.
These times are absolutely insane. The dogmatic is palpable on all sides of the aisle. Wherever we stand, the firm stances and blanket statements draw lines and highlight a new enemy each day. What happens when I am the enemy?
Trump is in office. How do you feel? Do you feel outraged, do you feel triumph? Do you grit your teeth at that which opposes you? What will quench our collective wrath? Must we not examine the heart and seek understanding?
Is it so outrageous to think we are mere women and men, floundering amidst our lives, seeking to do good by our works, and hoping to do the best for the ones we love? Is there any agenda purer in hope than that? It is only our hearts that grow corrupt. The first things to acknowledge are the areas we’ve seen corrupted within.
Join me in examining and seeking understanding where we have been emboldened to attack. Plead we begin find answers, not more mud to sling over the open grave of the truth.
Stages come and go. Good times pass, rough times pass. Then, life comes to a stand still every once in a while… ¤
That purgatory palace of neutral belonging in the calm. Not sure whether to call it peaceful break or a dried up desert that I’ve lost myself in. Either way, I think it’s necessary to say I’m definitely not depressed where I am, but I am quite far from the place I desire to be, what I want my heart to grow into. Inspiration is hard to come by when my eyes are stuck locked looking down at my motionless feet.
The thing is, comfort is abounding, opportunities to move are everywhere, but I still cling and scratch for more lifeless static to drown myself in.
“What’s in the static that is comforting?” I find myself asking. What is so enticingly desirable about nothing, numb, netherous nonsense?
Is it the escape? Is it due to a deep apathy in my core? A coping mechanism in some chaotic distortion of reality? The subtle jittery electrical nuances I find behind the glass are a twisted perception of amusing, adventurous change. Each flicker of light its own false promise of an image greater. I cling to these tiny confused things, harboring hope in the broken bits of tile fallen from the shattered remains of a glorious mosaic.
Video games, TV shows, pornography, news, selfies, films, articles, podcasts, reddit, with a forgotten hope in the background, hand-tuned out and forgotten without shame. Oh, the relevant insights they will give me. I place the order believing a promise, and I’m still waiting on the delivery on the second half of my self-assembled dining room table. Yeah, there are a lot of pieces missing here while I’m waiting on the next episode to come out.
袖岡由英
I’m aware of each nerve as that old familiar anxiety of impending actions and consequences flow downstream, whipping around the banks of my mind, playing out all the factors like late night crime scene reenactments. Chilling, stark imagery, with no distinct big picture. Directionless, mind numbing anxiety coupled with a misunderstanding of what I actually desire out of this life.
We are allotted this short time for something, right? We scramble so hard for meaning deconstructing all around us as if there is one. It’s innate to want an explanation as to why we care about ‘why’.
A reminder to myself: look around at the blessings. Not the directly material, but gifts such as the hands you have, the thoughts you get to think, the soft and delicate moment of rest that you seek. It can’t be crazy, nor evil to desire personal joy. It is ingrained in us to seek greatness outside of ourselves, and personally I’ve already found that channel, and I know I love that program…but I pause for only moments, only to continue flipping through the noise once again.
I’ll end this quickly and directly. I see myself and my generation clinging to the fleeting inadventure of the idea of adventure. Tragically we see the appeal of discovery, but we are consumed in the sad poison of presupposed understanding and projected identity. I petition those that hear to seek what lies beneath all these woes, laughs, and appreciations for greatness.
William Keckler
Let’s pray that we all find hope in the gift Christ bought, and if you aren’t of that persuasion, I’m hoping too for you to catch a glimpse of what I’m seeing, so that worship is placed where it is due, and so that nothing may sink us. Not fear, not relevance, not man, not falsely-guided passion, not death. Remind me to step out, friends. The truth is out there, and it is there not only to be known, but to be cherished by all who will.
Starting a blog. Any of you guys know where to start? I def don’t. That’s why I’m starting here. ⊗ Get ready for a convoluted mess.
I’ll wing it as usual and just say, ‘yes’. There’s a time for everything, and I feel that this particular time is drawing me in to share some (possibly) relevant thoughts here and there.
So, I think what I’ve decided on this first post is that I’m just going to share a photo, and then in turn, share my thoughts on that there photo, alright? A nice little exercise I like to call: look, a picture: a simple journey into a picture.
Here the picture is…
Lately, I’ve had a weird aesthetic obsession with space travel, or just the 60’s…not sure which, honestly.
This is Ed White, known as the first American to jump out into space and successfully float around out there in lifeless, vacuum-ous blackness. Looking back at the relatively recent history of the space race and the era that it built, this photo captures one of those moments that certainly makes me feel a bit more profoundly about how I view life, being that it simply fills me with excitement, a significant bit of fear, as well as a good little splash of pure wondrous awe.
Knowing who I am, I keep trying to imagine the paralyzing anxiety one must possess in this moment. Already packed tightly into a capsule built by my capable, but human peers. Floating within a void into which only a few people had ventured at this point in 1965. Then, somehow I’ve got to get my anxious shivering self to step out and grab a tight hold of some siq (\m/) new experience that hardly anyone has, or ever will have experienced.
You must have got some sense of pioneer that’s astoundingly paralyzing, overcoming something that doesn’t totally have to be overcome for life to go on, yet choosing to advance forward and propel the hope for that greater something remaining out there…you know, because we want there to be. “This can’t be all there is, can it?”
Looking past the vibrance of his facial expression, you can feel in his demeanor the tense lack of assured safety that he’s got in his confidence-free cargopants-thick space suit, yet somehow you can still believe he feels the weight of the calm in a quiet, blissful peace; arms fall splayed out just slightly and infant-like.
It’s a little jarring how very rare a moment like this is in life…there’s no control, but there’s also no anxiety of loss. Acceptance of some sort of order within the chaos.
Thinking maybe too hard into it, but the thought resonates deeply within myself. Deep down that’s what we seem to all want in the end, right? Just to be able to let go, and let it all go in abandon. Leave the stress of tomorrow in the dust. Disconnect from the seemingly unending fatigue of life. Lay it all bare to leave only the necessities, leaning sweetly back into the arms of something you don’t quite understand, yet which is truly glorious. So tough, though.
Faith is not my strong suit, and that’s probably due to the perceived ‘success I’ve built on my own’. Have I let my pride become too valuable? Why can’t I admit to myself that I’ve always been lost?
What happens when I’m not talking about losing myself to a new frontier like space. Or the great piny outdoors. Or maybe finding some youthful abandoned chillspot to snag some dope, likable instys in the process. Smh. There has to be something bigger than that, right?
“It has to be huge, this is new, must be for real glorious. It’s out there, it’s gotta be.”
I want to cut this apart. I’ll be transparent here with my fears, my friends. In my experience with life as a thing, possibly the most crippling fear I possess involves fully letting go of those precious attachments that preoccupy the uninpired, lathargic, apathetic, self-deprecating part of myself…fears that I might step so far out of bounds that I lose all that I ever had, along with everything I once took for granted. It feels dramatic, but I say that in hopes you’ll understand.
It’s a dreadful spectacle…to consider watching all that I ever accomplished in my own mind just die for nothing’s sake. My dreams, my sense of purpose, my pursuit of love, my passions for change…a chilling narrative: the things that made me who I am were all safe within the walls of my pride, and I took a risk, blew it, and lost it all. That’s the fear.
It’s petty and sad to have such a fear, I just have to tell myself. I recall there’s always been a hope, even when all seemed lost. From behind squinted eyes, I can see a glimpse of salvation, even with the gust of sand painfully caked onto my eyes. It’s hard to see past the irritation of my current state, but in my mind I know I just need to keep pressing forward…toward the stream I never considered until this new agony befell me.
The question I ask though, and will continue to ask forever is ‘what will I then seek when there is no ‘next’?’ What is next when you feel there’s nothing else to see? Fear prevents what’s to come, or rather makes us blind to see the good in what’s next. What peace to behold?
I find myself being told to move confidently with each step, due to the fact that my path has been made eternally clear in the Word I believe. It’s a slow process. Daily it seems, I have to convince myself of the persuasion that there forever and always will be something new and frightening ’til Kingdom comes.
Emphatically, there is something to glean in every moment, but it’s all about the perspective one chooses to take within that moment. Gotta swallow that weird convoluted cowardly pride that keeps my terrified heart from treading on, and believe like I’ve been shown that there’s something new to see, even in the failure…knowing that I will be lovingly made new every time I fall, even at my last.
Told you it’d be convoluted. Thanks for the revelations, space man.
The Gemini project was White’s last orbital project before his death aboard Apollo 1, the United States’ first attempted step toward a lunar landing. Kind of grim. RIP Ed White (1930-1967).
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