Of all human experiences, only one remains almost entirely unknown.
Despite relentless attempts at its description from every conceivable perspective, unhinged fantasy, limitless speculation and sordid detail, we still know nothing more beyond its cause except for the promise that we never will for as long as we live.
And then at that instant, we will know it as either the nothingness of nightmares or the everything we ever dreamed of and more.
You get used to it.
The truth is, you get used to it.
Over time, living single and alone eventually grows on you. You chew your food longer for lack of dinner conversation, sleep more soundly without a chatty someone stealing the covers, cuddling, or wanting something more. You save money on silly flowers or something special for no one special for no special reason, and you learn to be self-sufficient when sick, make your own soup and get your own toilet paper. You no longer worry about dying alone, just dying, and gradually forget the memory of a mind-blowing kiss, hug or the unexpected touch of a caring hand. Truth is you get used to it because it grows on you as an annihilation of everything that might have been, drawing the devoted heart, mind and soul closer to all the good things in this world and in your life that actually are.
something behind.
I write the things which are often not said
The silent dilemmas still left in my head
To wake up the ones left when I turn up dead
I’m just trying to leave something behind.
A whole book of stories from over the years
of people and places and things I hold dear
in hopes some will listen and some might even hear
I’m just trying to leave something behind.
But finding good news in this day and age
When i do, i write it, but it falls off the page
Far into the place where I’d kept it caged.
When I was trying to leave something behind.
I give it five stars.
Over the years so many products and people have offered promises to completely change my life, by now I should rightfully be only a shell of the man I once was. However, the only thing I’ve found to be 100% effective in creating lasting change with a five star rating over billions of evidence-based case studies is the taking of one free sample of life in Christ for which I’ve since become an enthusiastic ambassador.
unfinished business.
Be humbly confident in who God created you to be.
A favorite leadership podcaster, Craig Groeschel, posted this and I paused to check if I believed him.
I listen to a dozen different podcasts every day through which I have learned a ton about life, love, leadership and a bunch of random facts to impress others if ever inclined.
But this one made me take pause.
At 63, I’m disappointed.
I know that by my final breath, I may have filled my purpose in being born but might not be fulfilled in doing so. I have way too many unwritten stories, a couple impossible reconciliations yet to make, and more refinements in my character than time on my hands will ever permit.
Be humbly confident in who God created you to be.
I’ve few problems with the humility part but zero self-confidence that I’m anywhere close to the summit of achieving who I was created to be.
But does anyone?
Living is full of unfinished business, and I’m confident of only one thing, that unfinished business may be just what keeps us moving on.
the mind is a terrible thing.
The mind is a terrible thing.
The places it takes you for answers unknown can be to the most terrifying of scenarios.
As sentient beings we have extraordinarily low thresholds for ignorance, ambiguity and uncertainty, often prone to crazy possibilities which, in the moment, seem eerily more satisfying than no explanation at all.
But behind this problem is the actual one, a condition which reminds us of our humanity. Essentially, a control issue.
God only knows the truth of this.
Read that again, because therein lies both the answer and the solution all wrapped into one.
If God is omniscient and all-knowing, it’s the first sign that we aren’t. That’s not our job.
Today, this is where I am.
I needed to write my thoughts down. That’s how I work out tough times and reel myself back to sanity.
too hot.
It pours from my pores
And drips from my lips
This sweat is profuse
From my nips to my hips.
The drenching continues
No matter my pose
If it doesn’t stop soon
I’ll need to change clothes.
Water in, water out
Now I’m peeing a river
This summer’s too hot
I’d much rather shiver!
Woke Jesus.
“Woke Jesus” is a recent term which elevates the humanity of Christ over the divinity of Christ. The woke Jesus “movement” is promoted within progressive and liberal Christian circles and now even widely among non-believer groups on the left who characterize Jesus as a social justice warrior who came to earth to liberate the oppressed. It also serves to further their political positions with selective arguments gleaned from the very biblical doctrines of their believing opponents.
Pointing to the many scriptures and themes of Jesus speaking out against injustice and oppression coupled with clear expressions of His emotion like sadness, joy and anger, “woke Jesus” advocates for the advancement of the human side of Jesus over the divine side of Jesus as if the two are in direct conflict, with the human Jesus being much more palpable and humanly relatable. The fully-human-fully-God inseparability of Jesus as one person is too much to grasp and inconvenient to the politics of some.
Jesus being both God and Man is an inescapable truth but not a mutually exclusive one. Jesus the divine person is one of firm, timeless and unarguable moral absolutes, anathema to many non-believers who would much rather embrace the human Jesus as being more relevant to needs and issues in the world today (as if human needs and issues have become suddenly so disparate over just the past few decades over the entirety of history.) For them, a “woke Jesus” provides inspiration, guidance, compassion and a broader, more welcoming greyscale on the continuum of moral black and white. In other words, denial of many attributes of an absolute God made personal in Christ which are clearly biblical is one of purely personal and political convenience.
silenced reason
It will be very soon and not very long
Our cohort of voices all will be gone.
Six feet under and all out of time
A generation’s voice silenced as mime.
Tradition, convention, old fashioned beliefs
Stole by the grave and its myriad thieves
Sensible, logical, for centuries held
Replaced by such lies that all history’s repelled.
Who then will remain to defend common sense?
No remnant of voices to speak, and hence,
Very soon it is coming, and not very long
Our cohort of voices will soon all be gone.
So many whys.
I wander the streets with nowhere to go,
No roof or shelter from winds that blow.
With belly growls and hair of mange
I scour for scraps, I find loose change.
Just a young woman, lost and alone,
With dreams and aspirations entirely unknown.
I never thought I’d end up like this,
With no one to turn to, no one to miss.
Nights are frightening as dignities are sold
From doorway professions by others more bold.
Commuters rush by in their busy lives,
Ignoring my pleas and deaf to my cries.
Yet still I hold fast to a glimmer and cope
And someday I’ll find a messenger of hope.
To rise from the ashes of this daily despair,
And find some place to be loved and perhaps even spared.
But for now I keep walking these streets on my own
With hopes for someday a place to call home.
Until then I’ll fight to just stay alive
With dreams intact, yet so many whys.
