Experience

"The religion Jesus gave the world is an experience, not a body of ideas or principles. It is in being lived that it lives, as it is in loving that the love which it discloses at the heart of all creation becomes manifest." - Malcolm Muggeridge

"Does my presence do any good here?"

I want this to be a constant thought in 2011.

"Does my presence do any good here?

Contact with the natives helps to lessen the feelings of strangeness, tames them, and slowly makes taboos and prejudices disappear.

It is very slow, a very little thing.

It is painful to see the reign of evil all around,

the lack of good,

the enemies of the lord so very enterprising,

the faltering of friends,

to see oneself so miserable even after so many blessings.

However, one should not be sad

but should look above it all to our beloved Lord.

For it is Him we love not ourselves, and it is His good that concerns us.

Hope is a duty -

charity hopes for all -

hope is but faith in the goodness of God.

He is good and all-powerful.

Unquestionably, he leaves us free,

and often we use our freedom,

lamentably, but while leaving us free,

he still remains master

and can at his will send a grace

so powerful that is overwhelms everything,

transform everything.

He has already done enough for us to make us believe in his love...

There are difficulties on all sides at all times."

November 18th, 1907

-Charles de Foucauld

(spacing by me)

Rocks of Santa Barbara beware!

I have really love climbing this break.



A rock is glanced at,
a nick becomes a landing platform
for the anterior of the toe;
a bulge the antithesis for the weary forearm.

A challenge is born,
not in the summit,
but in the assent.
Body contortions become a brush,
and the physic a pallete,
to smooth across
a nick here
a bulge there.

Nothing is as it seems,
flesh turns to rock
and rock again.

We cried King

"We cried King"

by Ayinde Russell

Listen to him read it (#7)

the music is awesome too.

On a night so humble that stars kneeled at the pew of our atmosphere

Like wearied knights fallen prostrate in the court of their lord

As though the throne room of heaven had somehow settled into a lowly stable

in a desert

leaving only the most common of creatures to serve attendance of the coming messiah

And we cried King

The ground did not tremble

Continents did no quake at our savior’s arrival

Only the convulsing womb of a virgin girl

And the technonics of the plays building invisibly behind the veil of our natural realm

An opus resonating through the hallways of the ever-after proclaiming

Christ’s arrival

And we cried King

And for a moment an atlas appeared in the sky,

A heavenly compass

A breach in the firmament between eternity and us

A torch over the horizon given to help seekers navigate the distance

And winged messengers to chaperone the light

Pointing out the direction for the weary and crying “This is the way!”

And we cried King

Followed by a procession of unlikely celebrants

As mortals and immortals stood star-struck

As creator takes his firsts breaths

Clothed in rib cage and skin

Muscle and bone

Flesh and blood

Delivered to us

To deliver us

Breathing with us

To give us breath for us

And we cried King

And so I fly

Dec. 9th 2010

I feel like a bird
Lighter in flight than on a branch.
If I beat my wings, make decisions and move
then I think not of myself.
The weight of my own existence confounds me.
However, its a flightless discomfit.
And so I fly.

Today I landed - inevitable.
I return, but with no olive branch
To warm Noah and brighten the future.

Who am I?
And so I fly.

A happy new year

What do I write about when I have no incredible inspiration? Do I mention my revelations and meditations, my moments of enlightenment as I lay in the library somewhere between sleeping and reading? They were profound, and I baked in the single thought, "God loves me."

Maybe instead I'll write about the frivolities of being a college grad, having more freedom than I ever had in my life. Possibly I'll write about the look the two old ladies who just walked by gave me and my propped-up bare feet.

A frequent thing I do in my head, and when conversation slows with friends is people watch and write their possible stories. Is it the time for one?

Ahhhh inspiration finally comes... it came through the stereo, singing and giving commemoration to the grandfather of many, Father Christmas.
I am excited for Christmas. Nothing warms my heart like a peaceful rendition of a classic tune that has remained unchanged since my birth; Britney Spears doesn't fit into that category, Sufjan and his hipster favored album comes close but its too much creative liberty for me at traditional moments. Dim lights and a corner placed pine, bricks surrounding a brewing fire to match my cup of joe or cocoa, a warm voice embodying familiar lyrics, a chill to bring out the blessing of heat, a serenity rooted in knowing my Savior has been born, and a nearby well known souls to full up the room - and so this is Christmas.

Thank you for sparing my life everyday.

Paper

Springing from my bed this morning, the glow silhouetting the leaves out my window brought me a spark of excitement rather than the usual weariness of another jobless day. I reached for a fresh set of black boot-fitting jeans, unworn for weeks. Slipping them on, I filled my pockets with the necessities of the West: wallet, cell phone, keys - check. The I flung my arms in the air and leaned back for a long, inverted-cat stretch, thrusting my belly forward.

My hands nestled into my back pockets and I stood, thinking not of the past, nor the day ahead of me, not even the present - just blank. My fingers felt something - a fold of loose paper pressed in my pockets and their wrap on my back-side.

A glimmer of hope, an expectation of something great! Could it be the twenty-dollars I always hear about people finding randomly in their old clothes? Could it be an old note from a friend I had stuck close as a keepsake? Maybe an old to-do list? A supernaturally endowed note with a picture of the girl I am to marry some-day? Possibly some-sort of guide that reveals who I am and what job to pursue. Maybe it is an old treasure map of my childhood, waiting for years to once again throw me into it's mystery, and seeking after lost adventures?
It was a receipt, bland and nearly dissolved, completely white and starchy from at least two terms with my washer and drier.

I long, seek, and expect the prodigious, but keep finding the mundane.