My life is a joke!

... but at least it's funny.

You're beauty overpowers me every time. You touch my lips and I instantly feel the soothing chemical reactions relax my brain... as the espresso joins the already crowded conversation in my head. Some voices speak of hurt and anger... but even these are lightened by the humorous atmosphere of the rest. The voices are too loud to ignore, and I find myself getting drawn in to the conversation... not taking sides, but simply listening and laughing along.

To be honest, my emotions are so funny, that I have a hard time taking them seriously these days. I know they also speak deeply of symptoms of the heart as body, soul and spirit desperately try to come up with conclusions and strategies to deal with the messes I get in to... but the truth is that these secret meetings that go on in the basement of my brain have become quite public. If you get a chance to go one of them, you really should. I promise, you will enjoy yourself.

Father, help me to strip away the veneer.
Your profound hand, working in the spectrum of my life...
constantly working through the disconnect, adding value to the moment.
A powerful moment that overpowers the painful moments before it...
that not a single moment will be waisted, bringing each one in to connect.

How beautiful the connect.
The grace says so much about You...
but maybe even more about me...

And yet I still find myself denying the glass cage that holds me.
I can so clearly see the promises that are beyond the glass,
and I pretend that there is nothing stopping me from going there.
The reality is, that the measure of my success is almost equally measured by the weight of my desperation... But breaking through the glass means stripping away the veneer and truly believing that what is underneath... although it is broken... it is good. It is enough to break through, in fact, it is the only thing that can break through. The veneer acts as a shield, as we hold on to the hurt, bitterness and fear... like an anti-depressant that protects us from the depths of the lows, but numbs us from the beautiful highs. It's deception is in its weight... such a thin layer... and yet its weight is so cumbersome.

I would love to hold on to it all, but the promises are looking better and better... and to be honest, I'm getting more desperate... and the reality is, to break through the glass, I need a running start.

Are you like me? Needing to strip away the veneer that shields and weighs us down, so that we can gain enough momentum to break through... if that is you, then I need to say something. I truly believe that what is within you is good, in fact, at your core is the proof of the beauty of the human spirit.

So lets strip it all away... with eyes looking past the walls to the promise, run full tilt in the sweet freedom of our redeemed humanity.
Helping each other embrace the crash as we forge a new reality.

In addressing the disarray of my soul...
Knowing the need to forgive and let go...
I still find myself caught up in emotional warfare...
The momentum of the past, conflicting with the reality of the present.
My desires, my intent, past fears and failures, wounds and disappointments magnified by years of effort... all line up as ammunition firing at an invisible enemy that will never feel the blow.

And then there is truth, destiny and love. A presence that so unlike the other. Not a warring spirit, but one of peace... and yet it descends on to the battle field, looks deep in to the soul and gently speaks

"Your world is in disarray, because your heart is in disarray. Choose to love, choose to forgive. The war is over... let yourself be free."

The truth speaks beyond the battle and through the disarray. It awakens me to the reality of my condition... the love and grace, are almost too much to bare. A hope and a future bring the disarray to light. The truth breaks through and freedom emerges in a moment... of surrender.

I surrender.

The greatest victory is through surrender.

What is it about us people? Why are we the way we are?
We go through so much drama and turmoil... We get on the other side of it and feel like we need to justify everything and make up excuses for the loss, the change in direction, or the failure.

The reality of my situation is that I am clearly somewhere in between "This is what's right" and "That was too hard."

There is little need to justify. All we can do is live our lives as best we can... whether it be a change in direction, or a failure... it's definitely a loss, and i respect that.

Why can we so easily disregard the sensitivity of the human condition, just for the sake of being justified... Why is our first reaction to pick up the stone instead of choosing to forgive? When we know the intimacy that caused the offense...

Lord, you always looked through the accusations, you saw right in to the heart... right to the motive. You saw in to the corrupt vanity and banality of the heart and clearly addressed the human condition. Trapped among the disarray of sin, and cynicism... you extended grace. Those who tasted truth soon found out the reality that they were disgustingly sinful and full of shame... and that there was no safer place to be than at the feet of Jesus. No cleaner place than in his shadow.

I think deep down we know that what is more important than being right, is being forgiven. If you're right and don't get the credit, that's a shame... but if you're wrong and are forgiven... that's acceptance... and even on the surface we all know that it is more important to be accepted than to be right. We want so badly to be valid.

We need to get out of the mentality of, "I was right, and you were wrong." We need to simply forgive... because that situation can flip in a moment... And over the years it has flipped too often to keep track. So I respect you in your human condition, just how it is. And I accept you in your disarray. I forgive you, to the best of my dysfunction... Please bare in mind, that I am still working out my condition... just trying to stay safely in that shadow of the Lord almighty. Secure in His grace.

You know where to begin: take initiative... You know know God is: embrace the uncertainty. Even as we briefly celebrate the recent victory, or grieve the last loss... the next journey has already started. It is far less significant that we know where to go, but that we keep moving... never getting sidetracked by trying to figure out if we went this way because the other way got too hard... because the reality of our scars show us the risk in the adventure... So move with urgency.

But one thing I need to remember. That Jesus did not come to make bad people good, but to make dead people live. As that very presence upholds us, we need to be instrumental in awakening the dead around us. We know that the presence can sustain us.

Everyone has their own bias's and paradigms. I am no different.
Part of my paradigm is that I truly believe in the beauty and power of the human spirit. No matter how extensive the degradation of our world may be... I cannot give up my paradigm. How can I? I knowingly don't deserve the grace that is poured out on me... How can I judge others for their actions, when I know that they are simply struggling with the same cravings that I have for intimacy, destiny and meaning... they just don't know grace. They don't know the reality of grace that causes you to dream of a hope and a future.

One common courtesy I ask of you is that you do not judge a philosophy by its abuses... and I ask the same for myself. Please have grace with me if I do not act on my philosophy or deny someone its premise. We all have our ideals we are working towards, and the reality of that is we are all hypocrites in transition. So please have grace with me... I do truly believe in the beauty of the human spirit.

I'm starting to realize more and more about what's going on.
I'm seeing that more than anything else God is really like an artist.
The reality is that God is less worried about everything going right...
but more so about building layers, textures, and depth with all colors.
The process isn't always beautiful... sometimes even ugly as unfinished,
confused expressions haunt the work as it grasps to put meaning in
colors that do not seem to fit.... why would He do that to me?

It's the passion of the process that brings about something so beautiful.
The motive was always beauty... The end is beautiful...
Nobody could call it otherwise.
So it's really less about having everything go right and more about pulling the beauty out of the process.

It is beautiful.
Every fingerprint left in compassion with the capacity to change...
To learn to love, forgive, and to heal.

The Subprime Mortgage Crisis

Because I did not qualify, and you chose me still.
The risk premium was costly.
The investment shaky.

His grace towards me says so much about him... but maybe just as much about me.

To fear the Lord is to really care about His opinion more than others... and my own.
And there lies my struggle... As hard as I might want to try to give up on myself, He refuses to give up on me... As soon as I try to settle for a life that is below what I am called to, that is when He speaks to me most clearly... This is where we disagree... He tells me I'm worth so much more.

What good is it for a man to gain the whole world and yet lose his soul...
This has never been so clear.
What do you do when you don't want the world you've gained?
You try to get your soul back...

Another default... one more foreclosure... bankrupt again...
The policy never changes
His grace is sufficient.
His provision endless.

Leverage

Sometime I wonder...
If I took everything I have
All my love
All my intellect
All my strength
All my resources...
If I strategically leveraged all that is me... and left my soul hanging in the difference...
I wonder how far I could go.

The thing with latent potential is that it's latent. Some days I Don't think I'll get anywhere. That all I have to offer won't be enough to even move forwards another few steps. It's not like I'm ready to give up on myself... but all my efforts to wake what is latent seem to fall short... and my soul hangs still.

On the plus side. All these efforts and things are merely efforts and things. They're dispensable... I feel dispensable... It doesn't sound like I have much to lose if I put it that way... it's nice to think of it that way... But I sure would like to keep my soul.
Why did I put that on the line anyways?
Why does it always come down to that?

Maybe that's what Maslow was getting at. breathing and safety are important, relationships come and go... affirmation is sweet if you can get to it... but self-actualization (waking what is latent) is at the top of the pyramid for a reason. I think this is more important to me than I lead on... maybe this is what beckons my soul.

Or maybe Herzberg hits it dead on with his Motivator-Hygiene theory. Maybe satisfaction and dissatisfaction are separate. Maybe all I need to do is capitalize on motivators and minimize hygiene factors that bread dissatisfaction.

Or maybe I should stop looking at social scientists to help me describe my needs and look to the real source.

My life

I see myself as a center, actually more like a circle.
Coming out of me is a vast number of lines, actually more like arrows.
The arrows lead to a box which represents a person.
The arrows are my relationships to these boxes (people),
and some boxes are attached to other boxes.
The dynamic is that these arrows keep shifting.
Always attached, yet always moving.
Some boxes break off from other boxes,
and move quite some distance to the other side of the circle.
The constant shifting of arrows and boxes makes it hard for me...
to keep up.
I don't want to lose anyone.
But I pray that those that hurt the most...
Those we will be able to hold up.

I stare at my mountain... with nothing to say.

Why We Write

People write for many reasons, but truth is my motivator.

I believe we live in a society where we highly value truth. Our desire to be diverse battles with our desire to be united. In that we should not be looking for "our truth," but rather "the truth." We must not subjectively value all people's views the same, although all people should be equally valued, not all ideas are equal. Here I write about my ideas, your ideas might be better or worse, because there is only one truth of which we all gain value.

Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance : "is a psychological term describing the uncomfortable tension that may result from having two conflicting thoughts at the same time, or from engaging in behavior that conflicts with one's beliefs, or from experiencing apparently conflicting phenomena."

What motivates me is the gap between my expectations and our reality. The gap in what I believe to be true and the reality of my lack of truth. I write to close the gap.

Blessed yet lacking
Called to peace yet restless
Confident yet aimless
Loved yet lonely

I write to close the gap.

'Lord, I want to truly know you.
I want to truly know me.
You set the world in to motion,
Your grace keeps it moving.
Your truth sets me free.'