Finding your way

A long time ago someone very important to me told me I'd have to find my path in life. Then I'd have to walk it.

It sounds easy doesn't it? Finding your path, then walking it.

Have you ever gone hiking, and just seen something off the trail that looked cool or just needed to be more closely looked at? Then you turned around, and for a second you needed to find the path again. That is a microcosm of our lives I think. We all have the things that take us off the path briefly, somethings are good, somethings are not. It is during the times when we turn around and find our path that our true character comes out. Are we willing to labor to find the path again? Are we willing to fail just so that we can get back there? Sometimes I am, sometimes I am not. But the decisions in our lives effect the people around us, so what will we do?

Well right now I am laboring. I find that when you come to a clearing, it is harder to follow the path, in the forest it is easier to see the trail, but in a field or a desert the path is just forward, and not in any direction. It is just all trust.

I think it is easier for me than for others, I believe in Jesus' death and resurrection, so I believe I have the holy spirit, and am directed, comforted and disciplined spiritually by Him. But I know people who wonder, from one emotion to the next, from one crash to the next fall (the bumper car game of life). Hoping that one day they'll just happen upon that path. Yet all that happens is they walk farther into oblivion, further into hate, anger, bitterness and denial. I long that they would know my God, their creator, and their only hope. Not for happiness, lots of things give you happiness, not for a better life, some Christians I know have horridly difficult lives, but their only hope for fulfillment, for healing and for a future. I pray they find it, and I pray Jesus uses me to help them, not to judge them, i hate when people judge, but i just want to love them, and show them love can change all things, it can make all things new.

Remembrance

If you did know, I just returned from a year in England, that was about 4 months ago, but it feels like yesterday. I've been missing it ever since, don't get me wrong it is great to be home seeing family and friends, but there is nothing like freedom and lack of responsibility. I traveled all over the place, I was able to meet new people, and fall in love with amazing views. I used my brains, my whits my heart to make it through crappy situations, to help friends and search after God in a place void of spiritual conviction.

Now I am home. I feel... stuck in the muck of mediocrity. I've made new friends being home and hooked back up with old ones, and I brought some new ones back with me. My family is great, I love them more than anything and would do anything for them. But I am back in reality now. I have to do so much, and nothing is really left to me to decide. Go to class, work etc etc. There are two sides to my heart the "Cheers" side and the "Desperado" side.

Cheers
The place where everybody knows your name. I love being around people I know care about me. That will sympathize a little bit, then that will kick me in the ass to get the job done. There is this ideal of community that I have fallen in love with since I have been to England and back. It is the idea of having a community, or close knit group of friends and such that will do two things simultaneously. They will Push and Support. Two action words that I have a passion for now. Alone these words mean this; pushing will result in stretching which will result in brokenness and being burnt out. Support will result in feeling loved, and guided, in laziness and co-dependency. Yet together these things form a community that will live on the edges and take risks in hurting one another just to see each other grow and mature, whose pros will not only neutralize their cons, but will result in so much more. It will also create a safe environment to experiment with ones gifts and talents. There is one ingredient you need to successfully pull this off however, you need to be in-offence-able. This is the kicker and the one that leads me to be a Desperado I think, because I lack it.

Desperado
Desperado, why dont you come to your senses?
You been out ridin fences for so long now
Oh, youre a hard one I know that you got your reasons
These things that are pleasin you Can hurt you somehow
Dont you draw the queen of diamonds, boy Shell beat you if shes able
You know the queen of heats is always your best bet
Now it seems to me, some fine things Have been laid upon your table
But you only want the ones that you cant get
Desperado, oh, you aint gettin no youger Your pain and your hunger, theyre drivin you home
And freedom, oh freedom well, thats just some people talkin
Your prison is walking through this world all alone
Dont your feet get cold in the winter time? The sky wont snow and the sun wont shine
Its hard to tell the night time from the day Youre loosin all your highs and lows
Aint it funny how the feeling goes away? Desperado, why dont you come to your senses?
Come down from your fences, open the gate It may be rainin, but theres a rainbow above you
You better let somebody love you, before its too late

thats the eagles, need I say anymore.

My heart will always be alone, but I'll always be looking for the Cheers.

-mike

Pondering

I am sitting in a comfortable seat in a coffee shop, people talking around me, not to loud, but enough that I can catch certain words. Two old men, old friends, sitting by the window the tall one has his legs crossed and the sun is hitting half of his face as he explains the last 20 or so years of his life. An older woman and her possible daughter sit across from me. The woman knitting and her daughter reading the paper, the sun too casting shadows against crinkled clothes. The girl next to me is bobbing her leg fiercely as she has too much coffee in her system and sitting in between two men around her age makes her nervous. Her mind is reading the book, but her thoughts are all over the place, trying to remember if everything is alright with her current state. She crosses her legs the other way, she is comfortable now, and the bobbing comes in spurts, shes becoming more comfortable, and begining to enjoy the book she is reading, her foot bends back as se takes a sip of coffee, she is finally all right with who she is, and her foot starts to bob in the opposite direction, she doesn't even notice us guys are around.

I sit here pondering, I've thought and remembered the past few days that I love to think. I love to sit in silence and let my brain run wild. It helps clear my head. I've noticed in the past four years or so I've begun to stop letting it wonder, and I've noticed that with that lack of wondering, i am beginning to lack creativity. While keeping everything in my head that should be out and let the rest get through, it bottle necks and I lose the ability to think freely and with fluidity, everything feels forced. Everything from prayer to conversation, I have brief moments of clarity, and yet sooner or later I fall silent and just listen, as I have nothing really intelligent or at least outside the box, to say.

I've begun to write a story, forcing things out, it is about my grandmother. It is a sort of comedy. So far it is about 3 pages, I'll keep forcing it and see how it ends up.

I've been thinking of my friends lately. How they are spread all over the place, how some have begun to fade in my life, and others just dawning. I realize that I love new people, I love getting to know people. I realize I may heal, but I'll never forget. I might go on, but I'll always have them with me.

I may go to Chicago this weekend, be about an 8hr drive. My brother is going alone, and I want to give him some company, we'll see what he thinks.

Been awhile...

It has been awhile since I've blogged, and that is because the urge comes and goes. I told some people that I would be putting some of my writtings on this, and it ended up I haven't really written anything all summer! That is crazy. Any way, i've never been much of a blogger, i just used it last year to keep the family updated on what I was doing in Europe and to keep them encouraged, that I wasn't dead or injured or anything like that. So there that is, i wonder will I keep blogging, i guess we'll have to see.

Back in the USA

I am back, and as I have told a few people i will be using this blog more to get some of my writings out there and to get some feed back than for a journal type thing. Any way, God Bless all and keep in touch...


-mike

The One we Love

I wondered into a conversation with a friend last night. I don't even recall how it came about, but it really reminded me of something about Jesus. So much I think about Jesus in relation to all those who don't believe. It isn't that I don't think about how much I need him, I just more often think like this, "Wow, if we could understand who Jesus is, and live it out, how could the world resist?"

That seems to be the question I always come to. I don't think that is a bad question. Because I have yet to truly find someone who has figured Him (Jesus) out. And yet maybe that to is wrong to say. I have yet to figure out my brother, my father and even my mother (whom I'd say I've gotten to know the most in my life, yet I still am surprised by her so much in life.) We will never figure God out.

Song of Solomon

Beloved

2 I slept but my heart was awake.
Listen! My lover is knocking:
"Open to me, my sister, my darling,
my dove, my flawless one.
My head is drenched with dew,
my hair with the dampness of the night."

3 I have taken off my robe—
must I put it on again?
I have washed my feet—
must I soil them again?

4 My lover thrust his hand through the latch-opening;
my heart began to pound for him.

5 I arose to open for my lover,
and my hands dripped with myrrh,
my fingers with flowing myrrh,
on the handles of the lock.

6 I opened for my lover,
but my lover had left; he was gone.
My heart sank at his departure.
I looked for him but did not find him.
I called him but he did not answer.

7 The watchmen found me
as they made their rounds in the city.
They beat me, they bruised me;
they took away my cloak,
those watchmen of the walls!

8 O daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you—
if you find my lover,
what will you tell him?
Tell him I am faint with love.

Friends

9 How is your beloved better than others,
most beautiful of women?
How is your beloved better than others,
that you charge us so?

If we live our lives, awakening from slumbers, allowing our heart to be awakened by our Lord, and rising to the voice of our Love, if we dare to throw off the securities, if we have the courage to get dirty, the world will ask who it is we love so much, who could be worth our very lives. The world will want to know, and the best thing of it all is, they will know, if you arise off your bed at his voice, you will be doing the work of the Father, and all the world will see. "Put your lamp on lamp stand so that all may have the light." All it means is, live it, live it like you believe it, and get to know it so you know what you believe.

Preaching to himself...
-Mike