Desperation

I am angry, my bones are brittle with contempt and failed dreams. My heart laments its existence with every beat. I am downcast and broken and my dreams are haunted by demons that leave me no peace. I used to fight, to brawl until knuckles were bloodied with insurmountable passion and zeal. I was a whirlwind blowing from the south, consuming every trial with a twisted grin. The seated boxer was my hero; my jaw was set like marble and I was not to be stymied or stopped, I was not to be contended with. My dreams were the womb of sustenance that saturated my being with solidarity and hope. Now I am lowly, I am deplorable. My voice of beckoning has become a whimper in the dark shadows of twilight. I am angry, I am hurt and I am very much alive. I have heard the wise talk of journeys and the transformation that happens before the end, in order that one might achieve that end. Here I am in a cyclical force of endless walking, of wandering from desolation to desperation and back again. I do not pretend to wise, or naïve. I know that in a single moment I have attained both wisdom and foolishness. Here though, I have become a fool with no redemption evident. I was foolish enough to believe, until my dreams were ripped from my chest and I lay down at night with a cold hollow in my soul, with want to be hallowed. I am a faithless man, born of bitter defeat. I have wondered if this is my event horizon. If I have past the crest of relative existence and I am being swallowed by an absence of light, doomed to be compacted into an existence that defies natural law, or law born from Theos. I am a wounded son, bearing my lacerations to my world, letting my screams ring clear as I walk into the sea. With every cold wave, every salt filled molecule of water, I have hope and a pain so deep that I would not pretend to define it. This dichotomy of hopelessness and promise is difficult. I want to let go, to lay down and accept the fate of ritual and purposeless life, I want to admit that I was wrong, that It is all a lie, but I cannot. Even in my want, in my angry and absolute distrust, I know that He is not a man that He should lie or the son of man that He should repent. I know that I am wrong. I know that in my state of rage and unfulfilled desire that He, He is so much more than my faulty belief. I know that this hope in me is not mine, some ill-fitted armor created in response to defeat, it is not some false notion of coping or a defense to make sense of everything. It is wholly everything that I am. I am not seeking council or consolation; I do not want words of affirmation or platitudes due to some sense social propriety. I am not screaming “look at me,” I could care less. I have found the midnight hour, I have found Ichabod. In all of this, I have found a burning bush that is calling me to away from something safe and established: away from the ewe and her lamb, down into the pits of Sheol, where there is no chapel bell to ring, no sound of church and no icons to find solace in. There is a whisper behind me, causing my every fiber to resonate in disbelief and fear, to fall flat on my face and scream, “though He has torn me, yet He will heal me.” I am angry and I have hope that the bright and morning star doesn’t mind my furor. My bones are brittle with contempt, but He is a healer. My heart laments its existence with every beat of muscle, but His words are life and truth. I am downcast and broken, my dreams haunted by demons that leave me no peace, but His gaze steadies my wavering peace…

lunar longing

The tumultuous thumps of chaos have left me in an exacerbated state of emotion. Details aren’t important, at least not the methodical and dutifully categorized ones. My details are that of breath and life, of color and storms. I have loved quite deeply in all manners of the word, just as shallowly as well. Of all that is love, it is the deepest, the purest and most beautiful, that can and will wound you into the fiber of your soul. “I have friend, one that I love, her name is the moon…”

My nights have been missing their moon, missing that glowing satellite of spatial mass. My tides have lost all crests and pools, my oceans have turned in sorrow as the rhythm slowly dissipated and I was left in stillness, in silence; A quiet so deep and so absolute that the echoes of sound crumble like Granite Mountains. I was told to stay away from the ocean, but who can really do that? Deep calls to deep, right?

I kept hope when I lost it, on nights when I was dreaming of my moon, the shimmer that happens in the chasm of your mind, where synapsis fire like pistols and electricity rumbles through the smoke and like phantoms, figures emerge, my moon emerged. I awoke to the waning of hope. There was a cry in my silence, a roaring whimper that took a subtle prick at my heart. I leapt from the scattered smoke as reality bruised my body, scraping against door and wall as I made my way out.

The slow scraping of water against sand left me in shock. Tides? Here, now? The ocean was reflecting rage and there in the sky was a waxing moon. Brilliant white light pouring down in a frenzy, then like a snuffed flame, it was gone.

There is hope in me again, deep hope. My wounds are still raw, my heart still faint, my ocean is still silent and my night is darker than ever, but I know that “having hoped contrary to hope, in hope he believed…” I believe too. I believe I can do this, that It can change, that the horns of the alter are in my hands, I will not let go. I will be given audience and my petition will reach through a brass heaven and echo out like the cry of the ocean roaring against sand, roar like deep calling to deep.

The brave and the snake

The brave and the snake

There was an old Indian who lived down the road from me. He was an alcoholic. Actually he wasn’t, I just like to lie. He was a hardworking old man with hair as white as the insides of a coconut and skin as brown as a leather belt. If someone skinned him he would probably make the strongest belt any man could ever wear. I liked that old Indian. He told stories all the time, some were funny. Like the time he told me about how a 50 white men were scalped by 6 Indian women who put peyote in their coffee because they had raped and made them slaves. Slavery was a new concept to me, but having a woman you owned that you could have sex with anytime of the day you wanted didn’t seem like a bad deal; it sounded just like marriage.



He had another story I liked, it was about an old man who lived for over a hundred years, he was a medicine man who had watched all his friends die, and most of their children die until he was left alone with no one who really knew him, he prayed to the great sky spirit and he came and took him to a mountain top with other spirits, once there he cried so hard and long that a river formed and that is why we have the MISSY-SIPY river.


I always thought there was a moral or some shit to that second story but I could never figure it out. All I wanted was to be an old man and live on a mountain top with spirits; I couldn’t give two licks bout being lonely.


Aside from listening to that Old Indian there wasn’t much to do around here. I skipped rocks on the pond until I could skip 8 beats on one throw, then I got bored with it. So I went on to making things, I would make paper boats, planes, turn a two-by-four into a bat and smack rocks at the wasp nest above jenny’s house…that is until she would notice and tell her mom who would tell my mom who would tell my dad and he would whoop me harder than a hammer striking a nail through oak. After enough beatings (and by beatings I mean butt whooping’s, my pa never hit me like some of these poor folk do their kids) I left well enough the hell alone and focused my time on skinning rabbits and trying to make a pouch to hold my bb’s for my Red Rider BB gun I got for my last birthday.


I used the hell outta that muthafucker, at least, that is what I like to think. That got taken away from me soon as I shot out Miss Maybell’s window. I spent the next month mowing lawns to get enough money to pay for it. My dad didn’t take any shit or lip or lipshit from nobody, and everyone had to pay for their mistakes, he would tell me. I did all right at school work, I didn’t mind it, and it kept my mind busy. When I didn’t have nothing to do I would start getting antsy and my mind would run faster than one of those black people at the Olympics.


I liked blacks sure enough, never understood why my pa hated them so much. I was even starting to fancy Miss Judy’s daughter; she had eyes like fire and skin the color of tilled earth, exactly the kind of girl I wanted to marry. I am still working out how to keep my pa from finding out though. When I’m old enough I won’t have to hide it, I’ll walk right up to him, plant my fist straight in his jaw and say “This here is MY wife and you will take her as your daughter, and fuck all that hating blacks bullshit.” That’s what imma do…soon as I’m old enough.


Sheryl—that’s my ma—she don’t like me cussing so much but I figure I gotta grow up sometime and seeing how my mouth works faster than my body I figure it outta grow up first. Still though, I try and mind my mouth around my ma, she is a saintly woman and I swear if anyone deserved to go to heaven it was her.


That Indian told me that in his culture that a boy was considered a Brave when he could grab a rattle snake by the tail. I kept that in mind in case I ever saw a rattle snake, it’d be a sure fire way to grow up fast, at least to that old Indian. He was one of the few people around here who were different. I mean everyone is different, like snowflakes, that is what my Sunday school teacher told me anyhow. I believe her though; everyone seems to do different things, even if it is the same thing. Like when you fart in a crowded room and everyone has this ugly look on their face because it stank something awful; they all are making the same face you know, but everyone one of them faces is different. That Indian is like that, he is a person, but his awful face seemed almost from somewhere else. He was like looking at a piece of history. He lived in a teepee and did war whoops on Sunday because his holy day was every day. He would make bows and arrows and shoot black bears and cougars. He would dance around the fire late at night chanting a song that made me feel like I was looking through a window into another world.


GOTCHA! What Indian in their right mind would live in a teepee nowadays? If you fell for that you sure are gullible. He did make bows and arrows though, and he did chant by the fire some nights. He never war whooped though, I guess there just isn’t any war left in his old bones.


I spent more time with that Indian than my pa liked, he didn’t mind Indians as much seeing as how they were here first, which made me wonder that if we was in Africa if he wouldn’t mind blacks so much. That Indian told me all kinds of things, his stories were great, but he would tell me some shit I didn’t know what to do with. I mean a story is a story, but when someone tells you that people used to be able to change into wolves and bears, and they pissed faced serious? How you supposed to believe that? In any case he told me that a long time ago people used to be able to change into wolves and they would run through the woods and howl at the moon and they knew to respect the wild because they were wild. That was before men became tamed by laziness and greed, that’s what he told me anyway.


I was ready to dismiss that bullshit until I had a dream few nights back that I was an Indian. Me and my friend were trying to become Braves and were hunting to find rattlesnakes, I found one and grabbed its tail, just as its head flew past my arm I yanked it so hard its spine snapped. I was hooting and whooping and hollering all kinds of shit I couldn’t understand. I reckon my friend got kinda jealous ‘cause he pulled back a rock to find another rattler and he reached straight down to grab it and got bit. He fell over and we were far from our Indian village. I knew he was going to die. I remember starting to run, I a ran so hard and fast that as my feet hit the ground they changed into paws and with one jump over a log I started running on all fours. I felt the feel of my tongue hanging over my teeth; I felt the wind blowing through my fur and around my ears. I felt my body drumming in rhythm as I ran over moist earth. When I reached the village I felt my chest swell with air, I let my face stretch up toward the blue sky and as air pushed its way through my neck and came out in long and full howl. All the medicine men came out and followed me back to my friend. The dream started to fade when we got back to him and I remember feeling like everything was going to be all right. I had changed back into a human, rain started to fall on my face as I was laughing a deep, like when your whole body feels the laugh. I woke up right then in my bed with my dog Jimbo slobbering me to death. Damn dog. He’s always there when you don’t need him and never around when you do.


You know, most mornings as a kid are all the same, you wake up and you feel groggy, rubbing your eyes, hankering hard for a bowl of cereal and some cartoons or wondering how many tadpoles you’re going to catch after school. This morning was different; I think it was an adult morning. I woke up tired, weary maybe—I heard my daddy use that word after work one day. I was wide awake but I knew something was different. The light spilling through my window was so yellow it was almost gold. Dust was falling through it; we sure do breathe a lot of crap in every day. My old writing desk was halfway in the light; I was staring at it hard because I could see the wood grain coming through the cherry stain. It was like veins beneath skin, all preserved by some color and a clear coat. You see a space a thousand times and it always looks the same until, at one point, you just really notice every detail. That is when you really see it, when it comes alive to ya. I guess that is why city folk don’t like living here so much and why most of us that live here don’t take a liking to the city. City folk haven’t seen a cool November morning, when the sun is rising over the wheat field; the breeze blowing through golden stalks making them dance like a billion people all coming out of the ground and stretching toward the sun.


I made my way down our old gossiping stairs into the kitchen, they were always making talk with each step. My pa and ma were sitting there looking like death had come and shit on their faces. They obviously heard me coming down the stairs because they was looking at me soon as I round the corner. Pa looked up at me and told me to sit down; I was worried that a beating was coming, I started trying to remember if I had broke anything, nope; back-talked, nope; smart mouthed some adult, nope. I hadn’t done a damn thing and I told my daddy that.


“Dad, I aint done one damn thing wrong so you can’t give me no beating; I been respectful, aint bullied, hit, back-talked or broke nothing.” I crossed my arms and looked smug. My Pa opened his mouth once, nothing came out though. He closed it and then opened it again—looking like a puppet moving its mouth with no one talking. “Son, I know. Just be still and listen to me. I got some bad news for you. Jeff (I forgot to tell you, that Indian was named Jeffery) has cancer, I know you two are fond of each other, and he has taught you a lot about trapping and what not, but he is going to die soon. I figured it is better you hear it from us than from the grapevine. “


I didn’t quite understand what my pa was saying to me, I know cancer is bad and people with it usually die, but it just didn’t seem real. Cancer is one of those things you can’t touch or see, you don’t notice it like a cut, bruise or scrape. You only get to see what it does, like when Gertrude Laurence had cancer, that old woman must have been pushing into her nineties. She was always a hefty woman, but then she got cancer. It was like it was eating away at her from the inside out; she just shrank and shrank until there was nothing left. I wondered if that is what it would be like for Jeffery. He didn’t have much fat on him anyway so I figured it wouldn’t be that long before he shrank away. It scared me a little. That old Indian was probably my best friend. Damn cancer, if it were a person I would beat the shit out of him.


I let my pa try and explain cancer and when he was finished talking i just got up and walked away. I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t have anything good to say so I kept my mouth shut. I made my way to the pond to try and think about everything. My daddy told me more than once that a man needs time to himself to clear his head. And what better place to clear your head and get some catfish for dinner than a lake? I spent about an hour out there before I got my first bite. It was a big old heavy whiskered cat fish. He was a bull to pull in and even harder to handle. He must have weighed bought 9 pounds. That’s almost one-sixth of my weight. After I got that big old boy I didn’t have much use for staying by the lake, I gutted him and cleaned him out and started walking back home.


I was just about there when I decided that with Jeffery being sick and all he would probably like someone to bring him some dinner. I ran the rest of the way home and hollered at my ma that I was going to make a fire in the back yard and fry up some fish. She HATEs the smell of cooking fish and ever since I was little daddy and me always had to make it in the back yard. Well, after explaining my intentions to take Jeffery some fish, my ma said it was probably the most mannered thing I had done in a long time. She didn’t know that last week I took a bunch of her tulips from the flowerbed and took them to Mrs. Maybell—my ma gets real protective of her flowers—it was mannered, but she would kill me if she found out. I started my fire and grabbed the corn oil and some spices from the house. I laid strips of catfish in the oil once it got hot. They crackled and popped as the oil soaked in and cooked the strips of meat. Jeffery told me once that hate is like oil, unless you keep your soul clean, the hate seeps in and cooks your heart. He said it stops it cold, that the people that live after that happened are called demons. They no longer celebrate life and beauty; they wallow in hate and evil and are like poison to people. I prayed every day after that story, to make sure my soul was clean.


Jeffry’s house was an old one. It had cedar shingles on the outside. They were cracked and faded with flecks of paint being huffed off by the aromatic wood skeleton beneath. The roof was a quilt of shingles, all different colors and sizes, brought together by years of leaks followed by repairs. Jeffry had a spotted pony tied up out front. He told me that years ago he went up to Colorado and trapped a wild horse and broke it in a river. He loved that pony. He always said it was his brother and that there isn’t a big difference between animals and people when you get down to the soul of things. I stepped up onto his porch, that thing talked more than our stairs. I was trying to figure out what I was going to say when the door opened. Jeffry was standing there with his coconut white hair and deep brown skin. He was wearing a faded yellow long sleeve shirt. All the buttons were undone save the three at the bottom. Sitting around his neck and square on his chest were the bear claws from his first bear hunt. He looked like an Indian and talked like one two. He had that accent that they all have, when they grow up somewhere away from white people. The only thing that wasn’t Indian about Jeffry was the faded tattoo on his forearm of a naked pin-up girl. He said he had got it in prison with ink from a BIC pen and a needle made from an iron splinter. I never understood that damn tattoo. I mean Jeffry’s bout as Indian as they come, believing in his animal spirits and chant whooping, he even caught his own spotted pony for Christ’s sakes. (I forgot I’m not s’posed to say that.)But there in the middle of all this Indian tradition and life is a naked white woman on his forearm.


Jeffery enjoyed the fish and told me I should salt it next time and hang it by the fire to smoke-cure it. I said I would. His couches were awfully uncomfortable and I told him that. “Your couches are really uncomfortable. You should probably get some new ones so you can enjoy when you sit on them.” He looked over at me and said just above a whisper, “Couches…are…for white people.” His face was set like stone just after he said it and I stared at him so long my eyes begin to ache, but then that smile creeped across his lips and we both laughed so hard I’m sure they could hear us in China. He told me all kinds of stories that night. These weren’t his usual crazy ass Indian stories though, they were real stories about him and his life, his friends and family and how being an Indian was about Mischief. He told me Mischief was in their blood as much as murder was in mine. That the true part of being human is to never let what is in you, own you. I laughed so hard that night my sides ached the next day. He told me how his brother and him broke into a gas station one time. They had smoked some kind of special tobbacki that makes you feel like you haven’t eaten in days. They saw chips in the gas station and just busted the window with a brick. They ate and ate and then passed out. They woke up to a fat bellied cop handcuffing them; they waited till his back was turn and ran away. He told me how that cops belly jiggled like a fat bowl of jelly as he ran after them.


He told me that the best night of his life was when he was camping with his dad in the Red Wood forest; that the trees made him feel like a newborn baby, naked and hollering out but not understanding anything around him. He told me about his ex-wife and how I should never marry a woman with a crooked grin, cause chances are, she is crooked too. I stayed way longer than I should have, but Jeffery kept telling stories and I just kept listening.


This went on for a few weeks; myself going to his house around dinner and hearing everything he had to tell. My pa didn’t say anything ‘cause they knew he would be dead soon—and so did I. Jeffry never talked about the cancer, never talked about death, until the last night. I went to his house as I had been for the past few weeks. Jeffry was outside standing next to a fire, the sun was setting and twilight was creeping on like a hazy grey ghost. Jeffry had a deer-hoof rattle in his hand, along with a small hand drum and stick in the other. I thought I had seen all his Indian shit before but this was something else. He was wearing leather trousers with beads dangling all over it. He was shirtless with a bone breastplate dangling down from his neck. He had bracelets and necklaces on even turquois and copper earrings. I could tell he had been waiting for me. I hollered as I walked over, “What the hell is going on old man? You dressed up fancier than chief Sitting Bull.” He just gave me a dead stare and spoke, “Actually I look more like Redcloud. Sit down and let me teach you something.” I looked around for a log but there wasn’t one so I pulled a bucket off the ground and flipped it around then sat square on my britches. “Jonny, you know I have cancer, you know I’m dying. Tonight I’m going to teach you what it means to be a Brave.”


Jeffery walked around to the other side of the fire and picked up two bowls; he dipped his fingers down in them and wiped them on his face; the red and white running parallel underneath his eyes. I stood and walked toward him as he waved me over. He put paint on my face and a rattle in my hand and told me to shake with the rhythm he would set. He shook his rattle once, then again. as he shook the rattle he begin to beat the drum, the dull thud, thud, thud growing louder with each hit until it became steady. His breathing started matching the rhythm of the drum and the rattle. His chest moving in slow, steady motions until his neck twitched and he started to chant. I stood there not knowing what the hell was going on. I was even scared to move. I just watched Jeffery chant and chant until my eyes got bored and I started looking around. I heard somebody walking up behind me as their feet was crunching against the gravel. I turned around and there was another Indian standing right behind me, then another on the other side of the fire and another. They all walked up and formed a circle and started chanting with Jeffery.

It was one of the strangest damn things I had ever seen. Jeffery was Indian, but I didn’t know he was THAT Indian. One of the strangers grabbed my arm and pulled me gently into the circle. I stood there as they all chanted, the voices echoing down into my bones. I shivered once or twice, not because it was cold, but because something was going on. It was reaching out to me and grabbing my innards like my ma does a Christmas turkey. The chanting went on and on and I was trying to pay attention but my legs hurt from standing so long and it was getting late. I kept shifting my weight and I was about to sit down when they stopped chanting. Jeffry stopped beating the drum and the rattles came to a smooth resolve, as bits of bone and rock scraped against the inside of the hoof one last time.


I took a strong look around at all of them standing there around the fire. One man had real high cheek bones and eyes like Chinese. Another one looked like a woman, but I couldn’t be sure and I sure as hell wasn’t gonna ask. All the others looked like Indians you would see in school books. They all was wearing leather and moccasins and had all kinds of beads and colors on them. If I took a picture and showed it to someone they would swear it was taken years ago maybe back before we stopped fighting the Indians; back when white people still got scalped for raping Indian women, back when we made them walk the trail of tears, back when we condemned their culture to death by smallpox infected blankets. Right now, looking at all these brown men with black hair, they looked brave. Every crease and line in their faces was a piece of history and I wanted to know all of it. I looked down at my own white hands and I felt out of place for the first time in my life, that must have been what Jeffry felt like most of his. One old Indian surrounded by a bunch of poor southern white people, who were too angry and bitter to care about anything but themselves. I wondered what it was like to be a Brave then, to really be a Brave. These Indians had hunted bears, wolves, coyotes, they had stories that were old by the time my great, great, great grand pappy stepped foot in this place.


I looked over at Jeffry and I was sad for the first time in my life. I mean really sad. Not upset about a lost toy or pocket knife, not pouting because my but still stung from a whooping, but the kind of sad that leaves a whole in your chest. This man was my friend and when he dies I wouldn’t have that any longer. I wouldn’t be able to laugh over fried fish and ride a spotty pony. I wouldn’t be able to hear stories that were better than any damn book I read. I wouldn’t…I just wouldn’t be anymore. I knew that when he died I was going to change, be a different person. I knew it and I hated it. Water started leaking from my eyes, pouring really. Jeffry looked over at me and nodded. I don’t know why I hell he would have nodded at a time like that, I wanted to punch him in the face.


Jeffry stepped forward and the circle closed behind him. From the other side, one of the Indians stepped forward with a pot. It looked purple by the fire, it was prolly more pink in daylight, it looked like clay. He kept walking ‘till he was about 8 feet from Jeffry and squatted down. He slid his hand to the bottom of the pot, supporting its whole weight in that hand. With his free hand he grabbed the lid and in one motion quicker than a wasp sting, he removed the lid and flipped the pot upside down. He stepped back and pulled the pot away but held it between him and what was under it. I heard the rattle start as soon as he picked up the pot. The snake was coiling on itself and that rattle was shaking worse than one of those Pentecostal people. Jeffry hunched down and stretched his arms out to his sides, his eyes glued to the snake. He slowly walked forward and gave a “WHOOOO WIP!” Everyone in the circle did the same thing and then started chanting again. The he/she Indian picked up the hand drum and hoof rattle and set the rhythm. Jeffry circled the snake. He looked like a hawk; his arms wings and fingers talons. That rattler was pissed something awful, he hissed and lunged at Jeffry twice. Jeffry came in close and put his head down low about eye to eye with that rattler. He waved his left hand out and like lightening; his right hand came in and caught the snake just below his head. It was hissing and wrapping itself all kinds a ways around Jeffry’s arm. That naked pin up girl was covered in scales and snake oil.


Jeffry took out his knife with his free hand and rubbed his thumb down the edge until blood started dripping off his finger. He held it up above the snakes open mouth and let the blood drip down into its throat. My face was hotter than a metal slide in July. My breath stayed steady and the tears did too. I was going to miss that old Indian, more than I had ever missed anything. The chanting suddenly changed and it was getting faster. Jeffry started dancing around the fire with that snake on his arm. He let out one last “Whoo wip.” And put that snake’s mouth right on his hand. Its jaws stretched up and bit down hard. Jeffry let go and it dropped to the ground and coiled up on itself. I yelled out but no one did anything. I was angry, at those damn Indians, at Jeffry and at that muthafucking snake. I ran right at it and it lunged at me; I jumped to the side and grabbed it by the tail and swung it hard up and around until its head smacked the ground, then I did it again. The snake’s body went limp and I stomped on its head. I looked at Jeffry who was lying on the ground, his body shaking like that rattlers tale. He had that small grin on his face. He pushed himself up and spoke to me. “You’re a Brave now Jonny.” I ran over and put my head into his chest. Crying and mumbling, “And your nothing but a dumb old Indian. You’re going to die now!” He looked at me and lost that smile, “We all are going to die sometime. I’m a Brave; I won’t let a ghost eat me from the inside.” Jeffry pushed me off of him and struggled to stand up. He looked up at the sky and drew in every bit of air his lungs could hold and let out the loudest howl I had ever heard a man make. Then the coyotes howled back. Jeffry joined the chanting, circling the fire and chanting until he fell down in the dirt and that rattle snake venom finally seized his lungs.


I looked up at his house, his old blue 1950’s Chevy, at his spotted pony and finally at the woods behind the fire. I saw something flash at me from the woods and looked harder as a wolf walked out, sat down and howled. He howled until the fire died down to embers and the chanting had changed to sobs, all Jeffry’s Indian friends making a new trail of tears as they walked home. He howled until the night broke and dawn started creeping on the horizon. I didn’t think that old Indian was so crazy after that; I didn’t think his stories were bullshit either. I knew they were real and I know he understood what it was to be a Brave. I saw him change into that wolf and if any muthafucker wants to tell me I’m a liar, I’ll beat his ass.

Seize it

“bro keep in mind that the decision is solely yours, live for the moment, its the last time that moment will be present…”—Mi Hermano; Alejando Bajares


My boy dropped this line to me tonight; It kind of rocked me hardcore…


Opportunities present themselves in a frenzied array of circumstances and chance happenings as we walk through life; Often times we forget them, or miss them completely. With each chance comes a decision: seize it, or let it pass into nothingness. If you’re lucky—or just stupid—some might present themselves more than once; more than twice. For the most part though, those chances come around only once. Too many people live a life of safety rather than risk, it can be admirable for some, and treason for others; I am one of the latter.


So back to what my boy said.


The decision is yours, live life for the moment—this isn’t an excuse to blow off responsibility, it is a meaningful truth; moments are fleeting little creatures, gone before they barely exist. If we are to live a life enjoying them, we have to live in them and recognize what is in front of us.


Somewhere over the past few months I recognized one in front of me, I big one. Destiny is made, not followed; all of the world is conspiring to help us make that destiny. My moment is in front of me and when it comes to a point where it is ripe, I will take hold of it. It might not turn out how I want it too; It could in fact go terribly wrong, but the beautiful thing is: THAT’S O.K. Life is too short to waste moments.


Life is just too short to waste.


So for anyone reading this, listen to my brother, he was born of good stock and breed. Seize your life. Seize the ravishing beauty of it. Seize the love that is bursting from every little corner and crack. When you come to the end of the road you will be able to look back on the vast amount of wealth you laid hold of. It will not be money or anything monetary; it will be the reward of a life lived passionately.


Here’s to taking life and owning it: CHEERS.

intermission

I have been slacking on the updates. I'm currently working on a couple pieces to post. They will be up soon.

late night thoughts

Dreamers dream beautiful things
I started out as a dream born in the mind of God
Before time was named, before there was a mankind to save
Without dreams we lay down to death
Crippled by a fractured soul, where hope no longer bleeds ink in the talk story of our minds eye
Keep dreaming, loving and living, laugh deeply and truly
Let the caress of substance fade away as your heart births a truth more textured than silicone make-believes.
Because we were made to believe…believe in hope even when hope is telling us not to, to believe in the what not’s and what if’s as if…they were absolutes, we create in dreams by dreams and through dreams we are a dream, whether it is for the future hand with ring or the broken soul who needs a word of healing…


Sometimes I close my eyes just so I can remember what it’s like to be blind, I left that world behind for a better portion, distortion sometimes invades my eyes while I dream staring at the sky, making clouds take shapes, then sometimes…I just wait, wait for the thousand silk needles that strike my skin to remind me that im in a case of flesh pressed against space and time trying to keep my heart in line, dreams keep me alive and when I have spent my few seconds of reason dwelling on my past treason, I let the windows fling wide and as light illuminates beauty as the prize, tall grass waving, swollen mists begin raining I believe in the audacity of this living painting. I jump into musical ambition splashing fat bass colors with high hat covers, deep beats that create feats of outlandish redemption, yeah he sings to me in my dreams daring me to believe that he can calm the jealous ocean, he reminds me that the strike of white ivory, harmonized with ebony cries holds power to draw water from hearts of stone, and in moments alone there is a beauty in silence that silences the song of the sirens

I spread my arms wide beneath nighttime skies and let the stars hold me close, close like two hearts beating into one loud pulse of belief, streets carry me deeper into the den of lions homeless vagrants devoured by their jaws, lions of hate, loss, pain and the oh so brutal fate, but I refuse to be subject to the whims of nature, I will take her and make sure that I step side by side with the master. The smell of sour wine born from grapes that were picked to early, earthly and surly rambunctious souls that lose control and wont give nail scarred hands the chance to make them whole, praying with lips pressed tight trying to fight the tide of a losing side. Standing firm in the knowing that he will be showing HIMself like a thousand sunrises, the day the sky gets cracked we all will get back everything that was ever stolen, hope for the bride, hope for all of creation groaning for a revealing, sons of light play lightly with emotions, gravity is pulling us down and sound…is telling us the way to behave, tares in the wheat covering themselves like wolves lusting for blood soaked meat, ill stand still as a lamb and despite the ravaging I smile with delight, knowing death wont be the end

I stood like a wayward orphan on the sands of confusion, deluded into believing that I was nothing more than sand whipped by the winds of chaos, trapped in the invisible arms of another non-sentient pushing, stood like the seated boxer, carved from marble and left in a perpetual state of defeat, but somehow your words came down and like hammers they broke the curse of medusas sight, stone breaking and flying, old world dying, and I was crying out in joy, identity carved into my heart like a seal, my makers mark, a few moments of reprieve to let my lungs crack loose and breeeeaathhe, for the first time in a hundred years, my walls of fear came crashing down like Jericho and that scarlet banner that saved rahabs house reminds me of the scarlet river that saved my soul, stepping out to walk on water, you taught me to run despite never having even walked

hapless

Laying down the found
What I see Hope scattered like a formless fog
But im breathing it in
Swelling my lungs
like bags Filled
With seed for the sowing Exhale
Syllables flowing like streams Wash me
Of broken dreams
Redeem me
from
this
hapless
treason

to the ladies

To the ladies:

Stay classy, not trashy and if you trash he with FOUR LETTER explitives you have lost yourself. Beauty is not given it is won, not like a prize to gloat over or a trophy to show but like the hostage you delivered. Jealousy is bitter, draining the dregs of treason to season the dull taste of love. Love love love LOVE like a fire that keeps the heart alive in the middle of a world frozen by winter. It is NOT the fairy tale, unless you make it a tale to be held in the same regard as fairies...never existing. Stop running and start sitting, the chase is not fitting for the hunchback of soul. Be whole, and giving a thousand broken pieces is not the way to keep them close, shatters will shatter and the shattered leave blood spatters spelling out the letters F-A-I-L-U-R-E. If he chases will you run? And if he runs will you follow? All of you not a just the HOLLOW...shell. What fell from the last cloud 9 love drunk wine soaked adventure. Keep believing in dreams.

here it goes again...for the first time

Here it goes again...for the first time
Like a thousand flying feathers
Pouring out from beneath my chest
Like words pouring from the pen
I saw you, before I saw you
And now these same words
May lead me to see you no more
Delicate…fragile…honesty
Because honestly
I just need to be honest…

The poets words, sank the arrow
Coincidence or purpose, I don’t rightly know
Shaking hand, holding crumpled paper
Lines recited in Latin’s child
I knew then, like I know now
That what I would know
Was not up to me…

Cold hands stealing breaths,
Lips poised to speak but stand crippled
By a sacred silence
Where more is spoken by a look
Than in a word
Be my sacred silence…

Sky scrape

rough draft

Concrete and tar-covered veins poured in from every direction you could imagine; twisting around, under, over, through and beyond, beyond the graves of history’s architects who now lay in wooden coffins and stone memorials where no one remembers; beyond the limits of imagined substance and mathematical dialogue on weight and support; beyond the heaping hills of refuse outside the imagined perimeter of our city; beyond anything anyone could ever imagine or see.

Steel screaming as it is lifted on wings of woven wire; it climbs into the clouds to be set among its kin, Pressed together by gaseous plasma and flame, while blood pours in molten drops to stain the ground with the marks of birth. Form taking on form, abstract becoming reality, paper souls outlined in blue ink; they rise from the ground, anchored on concrete soles, bones of rebar holding together the separation between earth and sky. They are rather ugly in the beginning, dusty, crying, misshapen and crude in design; then coated with skins of glass, they shine like a thousand fire all reflecting the sky, reflecting heaven and the sun, its guardian.

Car horns blast as the screech of brakes bring charging mechanical chariots to a halt beneath the glow of burning electric suspension, filtered through crimson reality. People sprawl out on the walks and paths like a million moving hairs on the back of a new life that we have created.

Cities are alive, sentient creatures.

Cities are the reflection of man and the reflection of heaven, all brought together on the façade of mirrored glass; delicate enough to bow before fire and flood: strong enough to stand before wind and famine. Music pours through organs of mosaic and expression, rhythms so varied that ears can scarcely full hear all that is being made.

There is sweetness in the belly of the scraping giants; bread, wine, beauty and love: there is bitterness too; lust, envy, deceit and murder. Man lashing out against man, against the image of God; slaying what should be loved, destroying what we can never create; Cain enslaved to slaying Cain.

Listen to them now, the cities have gained a mouth to speak.
They groan as earth shakes beneath them, contesting the bloodshed, contesting the evil that is committed in their shadows, contesting the destruction of beauty, contesting the hand of masters that gain pleasure in chaos; so now they destroy, steel shaking and falling on the heads of the broken whom by brokenness break others.

It’s time to heal the world…

Thought

There is this thought I have that the world is finite. It is ludicrous, so very, very much so, the definitions of reality fade between global industrialization, conflict, war and the sunny warm afternoons of summer. It is like a lava lamp; ever circling in a mind warping elastic blob; I HATE LAVA LAMPS.

There is this thought I have that one person can change the world; shift the sway of time and break out from under that cycle of decays and success. Yes, history has proven it again and again, but each generation is born into a new history; grossly effected by the previous history. When that time comes though, we have a chance to stand up in the face of deceit and break away from the monotony. Men and women are born each day and each is given a chance to bring change.

There is this thought I have that the Church is amazing, and grossly stagnate in the west. I’m not going to bash the Church as a whole; just those ones that sell-out to a prescribed, dried out and flaky version of reality. You can see them every Sunday on TV. The same messages recycled over and over and over like a lava lamp.

I have this thought that when Jesus was born he was the spoken word incarnate into the flesh; that he changed the definition of reality to a subjective little nothing. It was reiterated later in the gospels and preceded by the words of the Patriarchs. Prophets and seers, men and women, PEOPLE like you and me. A lot in the world has changed but there is nothing new. We can break the reality, this fake version that people cling to.

I have this thought that there are people like Elijah walking the earth today; that miracles are a viable demonstration of power and that we need to stop making excuses for why we don’t have them. I want to have dinner with prostitutes and the weird men in black suits that work for the IRS. I want to tell people that Jesus is not just a “was” but rather a definite “is.” I want people to see that he is alive in people’s hearts today; not just in words but in deed.

I have this thought that a butterfly is just as beautiful as a flower and that people are more beautiful than anything else in nature because we are the image of God.

I have this thought that dreams have substance and we all need to be dreamers; that I life without risk is not one worth having. There is a satisfaction and honor in taking a risk to achieve something.

The whole world is waiting for you to take a risk and show them how to live.

Giant killers

Destiny doesn’t wait for the soft kiss of a promise; it is in the hands of those breaking beneath the weight of pursuit. They fight for dreams, fight so violently, with bloody knuckles and bruised muscles. I FIGHT FOR DREAMS. Despite this disharmony of some duped cadence trying to swing my heart beat to a foreign key; keep moving you warriors, remember who you are. We are the light on the horizon; bursting through nights cold grasp. We expose the evil and the wicked. We break down palaces that no one has ever seen.

Speak to the wind and tell it to carry your voice far, farther than your feet can go, farther than you can imagine.

I am a message in a bottle, cast into the ocean of the earth. I will stand proudly and proclaim THERE IS A WAY OUT. And I will stay shouting with the threat of arrows whistling overhead. I dare to dream, to tread, to take my destiny and force it make a way for me. I will take my heart and let it beat out a path where that way may not be wide enough for the girth of vision. Come fancy-dance with me, like fireflies mimicking stars. Faith is in my lungs, stretching, pushing heavily against everything on the inside. I have to grow to make room for it. We are children of Abraham, children of promise.

Let’s heal the world.

Creation is waiting for you, longing for you to be revealed. Not to the watchers set in the sky, but to yourself. You are more than you can imagine. You are a message in a bottle of flesh cast into the ocean of humanity. When you land on that shore, no matter what part of the world it is, burst open and shout loudly what is on the inside.

Don’t be defined by the cacophony of deluded wise men, thinking they are religious, but never knowing God. Rise up and defeat Goliath, step up and cry out. Let the whole world see, there is a man who can still fight. Let your bruised fist grasp that worn sling, swing it hard and let the one who wrote that message on your heart guide the stone.

There are giants that kill dreams, but there are dreams that kill giants.

inked

I am in this room. It’s warm and slightly dusty but not dusty enough to make you sneeze or your eyes to water, just enough to tell you it is still and old. Light is coming in the windows, bright white sunshine, splashing the book case with light. On the old cherry stained table in front of me are blank sheets of white paper. The old paper, not the kind you find in a printer. It isn’t that clean and perfect white; crème might be more precise. It is rough too, sops up the ink. There is a quill and an ink jar; both fresh. I pick up the quill stroking my hand against the feather. The jar catches my attention again and I dip the quill, deep like, I pull it out and let a drop or to spill on the paper and watch as it begins to dry. I poke it with my finger.

Stained skin.

It seems appropriate, I don’t think anyone is actually white; we are all more like crème. Some of us just a have a little more ink than others. I like ink though; I like that weird smell it has. I like that I can use it to write down the soul of a matter, not just words. The ink in itself is a word, a word that flows through all languages, it takes different colors and mediums but that doesn’t change the fact that it is very distinctly ink.

When I think about heaven I think about God drawing my eyes with ink. Taking fleshy white marbles and dipping a needle in some ink we have never seen, ink that lives and speaks, ink that changes over time and can never be erased or blotted out ink that came from God Himself. Yeah, I think about God picking up that round white thing and plunging that needle deep and inking my eyes, sort of like a tattoo.
I have two tattoos and will be getting more, but I have some that are divine, not in the really good sense, but in that real Divinity kinda sense. They are written on my heart and soul, on my mind. People ask me about them how I got them and where they came from; I tell them this Jewish guy I know wrote them there. They always ask what they mean; I try and tell them but sometimes they don’t understand that God can write and that He writes on souls. They have this thought, maybe God isn’t real. They know they are written on too, but their colors are fading. They think that because mine are bright I did something different, that I am either a lunatic or I have answers. I do have answers…one answer really; His name is Jesus, He is God. And He likes to tattoo.

Song of songs 8:6 “Set me as a seal—mark, brand, (ink)—upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is as strong as death…” Love is deep you know? It is strong too, stronger than people know; strong enough to rip you apart from the inside out, strong enough to kill you. I tell people to be careful with love; no one ever wants to believe that it can be strong enough to fade their colors. These are the same people asking me about mine. It is ok though, because mine were faded once too; faded like an old parchment with ink that is disappearing, beginning to flake off; faded like the glory of a republic that only exists in minds or like a dream that you begin to lose as soon as you are awake.

Are any of us really awake?

I just woke up, and I can’t see that room anymore. That ink I poked my finger in is fading away. But my colors…they still are bright

BREAK

slam poem

I am chained down/With heavy links of social perception/Expectation and regret, inward reflection, fleshly metallic deception/All day trapped in steel frames/Assigned positions and titles from tongues left unbridled/These illegitimate names/Giving praise to the biggest mockeries/Outright hypocrisy/ Filthy stewards, tainting the purity of Liberty/I WILL BREAK OUT/Break from these wayward masters/Ideas and perceptions producing societies beneficial Bastards/Identity in crisis/I WILL BREAK OUT/Break these chains that try and define the ineffable mind/Plastered a rebel because I reject these crooked chronicles/Labeled a prodigal/I have turned from Delilah’s rise who gained power by plucking out Samson’s eyes/Break out of this invisible prison/Mercy, a jest in the democratic court of a perverse King/Filled with at the sight of man caged/trapped in silence by these wicked sirens filled with bloodlust and violence/Implemented through passive aggressive means/GUILTY through secondary indifference/GUILTY for the hunger in my mind/GUILTY of hoarding the bread but freely pouring the wine/Damned phantoms creeping in cooperate alleys with white gloved hands/Hearts caked with rotting infection/The stench of Dreams long since dead/I WILL BREAK OUT/Because they are out to destroy us/And by they I mean we and by we I mean I…I am out to destroy me?/The dichotomy of a fractured sentience born of false existence based on the perception of lies/Media feeding pride/Promoting racial tensions while behind the curtain legislating unethical missions to destroy ethnic cognition…I WILL BREAK OUT/ because he showed me the way/The jaws of Leviathan have been smashed and Babylon will not hold me down and I will rise with wings born of grace/freely given to me and I will freely give them to any pauper who wants to be a prince/I WILL BREAK OUT/Because these chains hold no power and death will not be my end…

2

2.
Sometimes it is absolutely necessary that we get out of the way of ourselves. Yes I meant to say it exactly like that. Yes it makes perfect sense. Yes I know it isn’t easy.

There is this “Thing” we are running after. Despite what many want to call it: dreams, hope, love, faith, happiness, wealth, fame, or even just a simple kiss; what we are really running after is fulfillment.

I know it isn’t a heavy idea, except… it actually is.

Not in idea maybe, but rather in substance. In substance it takes on a whole new character and taste. Its look even changes and what we thought it was—once getting to that place—is not at all what we imagined. Many people think money will solve all the problems of the world; it really won’t. Africa has proved that.

Fulfillment looks like a billion different things to a billion different people but to every one of those billion the biggest obstacle is the face they see in the mirror, or pond, or passing glass window while strolling downtown. The reasons for it are plenty obvious and plenty flashy.

We have this nature in us that fights for itself. It is selfish and seeks its own gain. On the surface that might not look so bad; every one looking out for themselves, to protect what they have, but the truth is this is the complete opposite of love.

In that world everyone gets screwed.

We want to be happy; I think most people in their sane mind want that, but sometimes we have to trudge through the muddy waters of our own selves to find that happiness. I am not trying to sell a self help “your best life” type of gimmick. What I am saying is this; we constantly sell out every single day to the immediate gratification of stupid little things in the hopes to bide off the pain of that gaping hole in our chest.

We do it with: coffee, shoes, games, relationships; some do it with drugs, lust, hate, murder, envy, the point is we all do it, none of us are any better than the rest.

However we can have fulfillment.

We just have to swallow that huge ball of powdery flour called pride; it doesn’t go down easy, it isn’t meant to. When we do that we will see that fulfillment has been in us the entire time. His name is Jesus.

What’s that you say? You have tried the church thing and it didn’t work?

I am not talking about the church thing: I am talking about that tanned Israeli who showed us the way to freedom and unlocked the door with his blood-that man isn’t church in the sense your thinking. He beckoned us to follow him to the ends of the earth preaching and teaching and healing and casting out devils and pulling down strongholds and principalities and powers. That man is not for a half-ass gospel. Fulfillment begins with him, and in Him we lose ourselves and gain his identity, but in that losing of ourselves and gaining of Him we are re-born into something wholly different but still bearing individuality.

It is beautiful right? We die to ourselves so we can gain Him, but in doing it we actually gain ourselves-or the part of “us” that is real and irrevocable. When we see that we see happiness.

What does it look like to be happy? Ask anyone who has served the poor, built houses for the needy. Ask Heidi Baker or Jacki Pullinger. You ask them what it is to be happy and why they serve and deal with the broken of the broken. Crack addicts, meth heads, prostitutes and the starving, the sick and the blind.

They do it for love; real unadulterated and unselfish love.

Maybe we aren’t happy because we are selfish as hell and do not want to swallow that powdery ball.
I understand, some people choke on that pride and die in the process. Why risk it then? If we would open wide and swallow that pride we can chase it down with the water of life, and a little honey. It really isn’t that bad when you think about it; a moment of pain, or a few moments of pain, for the understanding of a life fulfilled in beauty and having an affluence of happiness that can change the world.

You think I am wrong, that is ok.

Look Jesus in the face and tell him you’re not happy with your life.

But before you do

Make sure you’re doing what he told you. I don’t mean the abstract stuff; the religious empty tradition, I mean the concrete explicit biblical stuff. Stuff like “…all the law and the prophets are summed up in these two things, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind and love your neighbor as yourself.’”

If you want to be happy it comes down to this, LOVE.

Love unselfishly and truly, bear your heart to be wounded, but know that Jesus can heal any wound. When we walk in love we are fulfilling the entire law and prophets. If you ask me, you can’t help but be happy when you are doing that.

1

1
The other night I was driving around in my very beat up ford ranger; she has been through a lot, my mind began to wonder about the normal or not so normal things in life. Like will there be mountains or oceans in heaven? Or will there be animals we have never seen? Will God look like I imagine Him (as a black man with a voice that sounds like coffee smells.) It might seem like an obvious answer but I don’t really think it is. It reminds me of conservatism.
Being conservative—in the Christian sense—conjures up a few images of old ladies in unflattering dresses or country folk taking a ride to the city and talking about all fast paced, loose, immoral people. Maybe even it will bring an image of a soap box preacher with a megaphone shouting out to the mocking passerby-ers that they are going to hell if they don’t repent of their wicked, wicked ways. Or, if you happen to be in downtown Orlando on a Tuesday night, you might just hear one yelling “If you’re a faggot you’re going to burn!”
Most of those are not pleasant images (not that I have anything against old ladies and their dresses,) but they don’t really appeal on any level do they? But what about the conservative who is against abortion or national healthcare and big government; not because he is against abortion or national healthcare or big government, but because his religious standings prevent him from believing or voting for such things? What about the conservative who is soft spoken, meek, truthful, honest and thankful; who does not judge or scream or holler; who does not call people “faggots” or blow up abortion clinics?
What about me? I call myself a conservative Christian—though by most standards I would not be—but that all depends on point of view. I am loud, often times I make quite a ruckus. I love to laugh and push people to justify why they believe in something instead of “just because.” That makes a lot of people upset. I also hang out with pregnant girls who aren’t married. I have friends who are gay. I know a stripper or two. I have read my bible while having a beer. I have talked about the power of the Holy Spirit while smoking a cigar. My aggressive nature is largely misinterpreted. I love Jesus more than anything in this world. That makes most people think I am not conservative. (It probably makes them think I am an apostate.)
With all these different views and thoughts of what a conservative is how can we pin it down? We can’t. The lines are too faded and mostly have no reason for being in the first place. Non-conservative, conservative, liberal, neo-post-modern-ultra-orthodox-catholic-semi-Calvinist…what does it matter? Where do these titles come from? We need some yes to define things in our mind. We like things orderly and neat and able to place into a category or relational bubble. There are things that don’t fit and cannot be placed in a bubble or category. Things like Jesus. You can’t put God in a box, and if you can I would say that what you are so delicately guarding in that finite imaginary cube is nothing more than something wholly other than God.

We have become great at creating gods, haven’t we?

Purpose

Here among the shadows hung deep and black, cast against adjacent walls; our minds wander aimlessly through the burning questions we have managed to escape for part of another day. However, in still times when our minds break our elusive game of escape those burning questions arise with a defiant air; screaming to the forefront of all thought and attempted imagination. You all know the questions I’m talking about. They are the ones we hardly bring up because the answers are either too elusive or too broad or too relative or too…always too everything, too big and too much and too heavy to dwell on for any length of time.

Despite the size and depth and uncertainty of such questions, WE MUST think on them often. We must hold a fondness for them. To be well acquainted with every single one of them: for these questions are the key to what we are missing.
There are passions burning so deep in all of us-even for those who say they have no passions, at some point you did, now you may be so crafty at pushing them away that you have forgotten them altogether; this does not negate the fact those passion did rage. And somewhere in that hollow shell of humanity bearing the image of someone so other than human, those passions still exist.

These passions point us home.

I’m not talking about sexual passion, monetary passion or half formed emotional passion. I am speaking about the deep kind, born of years of looking out on the world and feeling something move in us every time we hear or see or feel. It could be art, music, literature, people, plants or whatever, but those passions are a direct link between the part of “us” that society has rendered and the side of “us” that they have never been able to touch.

The potential resting there is not able to be measured. I heard a man say once that passion always precedes purpose… and there have a nagging question…

What is my purpose?

It nags and aches and festers until we either beat it down so badly we forget that we ever thought it or embrace it and find that those passions locked in us move us toward the purpose we so desperately want.

Purpose is a sword in the mouth of many people. Those who don’t know it are cut viciously and refuse to pursue it from fear. We look at those scars and scoff, laughing at ourselves for ever giving flight to such a fancy as living with purpose. Our world in its broken state teaches us that purpose was lost a long time ago. That people don’t live for purpose, they live to live. This lie is destroying the lives of thousands.

There are others though who learn to use that sword and cut through every obstacle blocking their path. And those people look at their scars and value, in greater measure, what it took to get where they are.

We have to listen to the little things cause they are always first to know when the big things come.

And when those little passions flare, we have to stop and ask “why does this thing always move me, why does it keep coming up, why am I always captured by it?” Those answers will not always be readily available but by choosing to pursue a passion we find our purpose.

By questioning ourselves we will be forced to find answers or at least seek after them. Those answers could lead us to places we may have been blind to but they are sure to lead us.

It is of no small task to live in a place of purpose; it will challenge and refine us push us to the limits of who we are. But there is a fulfillment there that cannot be had from any other place.

We must lay hold of our purpose and pursue it violently; with passion and faith enough to keep us running after it that even after having no favor come we may one day happen upon it and from there begin to live as an effective change in a world that is always looking for a reason to live.

The two natures; PART 2

The two natures; PART 2

Jacob, he was a son of Abraham. The genealogies list it like this, The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The crazy thing here is Jacob was not the first born. He was not the one to be listed in that line, it should say Abraham, Isaac and Esau.

But something happened.

Esau sold his birthright to Jacob. There are a couple things that could trip us up here. Can a birthright be sold? Aren’t you born into it? Is it even tangible?

Yes, yes and yes.

As I said previously about Esau, The birth right that he sold was not only about a parental blessing it was about taking the word of God at face value. But this is about the nature of Jacob…

Jacob was supplanter, he schemed he lied, and he deceived. So how did one like this ever get the blessing of God that would bring about the redemption of mankind?

After Esau sold his birthright, later Jacob tricked his father and lied to him-with the help of his mother; from that lie Jacob received the blessing due to the first born. This blessing wasn’t just about saying something nice about the first son, by receiving that blessing Jacob literally became as the first born.

After this he fled and married Leah and then Rachel. He had twelve sons. He later left his father in law and after some turbulent affairs came to a place where he was going to meet Esau. Jacob hangs here in a place of fear and uncertainty. His nature flares up again, he attempts to appease his brothers perceived anger by sending gifts.

And then something changes…

In Genesis 32:24

“…and then Jacob was left alone; and a Man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. 25Now when he saw that he-the man-did not prevail against him-Jacob, He touched the socket of his hip; and the socket of Jacobs hip was out of joint as he wrestled with him. 26And He said, ‘let me go, for the day breaks.’ But he said ‘I will not let you go unless you bless me!’…” In the following versus the angel asks him his name and then renames him “ISRAEL” which meaning “God prevails”

Jacob stepped into something.

Despite his nature of deceit he grabbed hold of God and would not let go until God blessed him. Even after being wounded by God he still held on and said “I will not let go.” Within us as believers in God and His son Jesus we have these natures in us. They both fall grossly short of God; proving our need.

There are times, moments of destiny if you will, when we step into a moment so divine we must tread lightly and violently. “For heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force.” Jacob grabbed hold of heaven with violence and even after being physically struck and afflicted he would not let go. We have to have that same quality in ourselves. Esau forsook that covenant for food. Jacob held onto it even in the face of physical affliction.

The natures we have in us will either bring us to a place of raw abandonment and leaning on God or to the destruction of our souls and separation from Him.

Jacob held true to who God and pursued the Lords blessing over his life and became the one from whom the 12 patriarchs came. He gave birth to 12 pillars of which the world’s destiny would be forever linked to...

flowers in the desert

I have been in a real place of breaking recently, I don’t mean the “ow, that hurts stop poking me” I mean like the “AHHHHHHHH” flesh being pulled back and nailed to a wooden plank as your heart is plucked out and crushed until you bleed love-kind of breaking. Simply said, it has been great. No I’m not being sarcastic; in all honestly it has been amazing. How? Think of childbirth, a lot of pain and screaming and agony but there is definitely a joy in the process that something is changing and in the middle of all that discomfort there is the thought, “something is about to be born.”

That is where I am at, something is about to be born. Despite the ill fated nights of my clandestineness, where I was hiding beneath sheets of flesh trying to flesh out that ghastly nature of fleshly fleshiness; I have reached the point of having true joy in my position.

Recently I was rather taken aback by a simple but powerful encouragement via YouTube. In said encouragement, this dude was talking about “callings” and where people are at how to know what God has for you, said dude…said, “it isn’t about your ‘calling’ so to speak but rather what God has for you where you are now, you have to take it one day at a time and give yourself to the season you’re in now without living in the future that doesn’t exist yet. Find what you can and want to do know and run after it with the release of God.”

Too often we pass by what god has for us now by wasting our imagination and focus on what he will give us in the future. Today I know God has something for me, I just have to spend time with him so I know how to listen to what that is. This sounds simple and matter-of-fact-ish, but the truth is “it ain’t that easy.”

To love God is to pursue God and to pursue God means an active zeal in our hearts to push ourselves-through his grace-toward the ever so misquoted “prize.” That prize is Jesus himself. Everything else comes secondary to Him; Every ministry, Person and whatever half cocked Greek reasoned, self justified argument you could bring to deliver the contrary: in short lads and lass’, Jesus is the ultimate trump card.

So with this new place of broken joy, I am finding the desert to be a far more fruitful place than the dark soil of life’s little lessons. I don’t do little, I do big and I mean BIG. I know something is being born because I feel in my soul the pangs that it is taking to bring it forth.

All this is simple I know, I detest simple, useless diatribe aimed at reminding us that we are going to be ok and we are wrong for thinking otherwise. Are we wrong to think otherwise?

YES

But that is not the point, point is we live in a state of grace where it is not of works, and we are not debtors to the law.

It is way better this way, trust me.

So with a simple page or two of my ranting that seems so light hearted, I am conveying in part, 6 months of churning and tears and often times cuss filled frustrations at life and my circumstances, wanting more of God but knowing I was letting myself get in the way. Nights where my sleep was scattered, my heart more weighty than black hole and days of despair, destitution and bitter bitter, bitter words of a man that is long dead, “Though He slay me, yet I will trust Him.”

Ladies and men of the Gentle…hearts, He is faithful to fulfill what he promised. So with that, “keep on keepin on” and don’t wait for the future, make a Wave now, make it so big it knocks people over and leaves others sitting dumbfounded wanting to make one to.

If you want it bad enough, be ready to wear the sackcloth and ashes before you get the mantle and miracles.

Broken by grace, consumed by faith
Levi

prayer and suffering

There is an answer to prayer that is not the pretty little breeze of blessing; the beautiful conquering of some ill bred foe; the joy of a heart saved from self destruction. There is an answer which is ugly and grotesque, rank and flail-worthy; where screaming and kicking is the song and rhythm of your life. When you ask to have the heart of God: when you say you want to love more deeply than anything you have seen, to love the broken and downtrodden; side by side to the rich man; the pockets of whom are too swollen for him to know what it feels like to fall on his rump.

This answer comes in the complete destruction of oneself, the slow decay of every foundation and solid footing. The breaking of a man is one of the ugliest things I have ever seen in my life. Not to be hasty and judge the ugly things of no sure use, for they are. Before you build you have to lay waste, before you plant you have to plow.

It is a bitter thing to willingly subject oneself in a joining to the heart of God. Whoever says such a thing is a constant joy is a liar and a thief. The former for they cannot have the heart of God and not know the sorrow that is there, joy-yes-but sorrow also. The latter because such a damned fool is stealing truth from the hearts of honest people.