On Looking at the World

We live in a world of great darkness, filled with suffering, anger, pain, and brokenness. Terrible things happen to people, and people do terrible things. Tears, be they hidden, quelched, or patent, gather in the corners of everyone's eyes. Those tears exist for a myriad of different reasons, but their existence is irrefutable. The world should not be this way, but it is. This world is a tragic place.
But...
There is a God who is present and active in this world and he is desperate to set it free. He is absolutely desperate. Every now and then, God decides to show up and remind me of this.
Tonight, I got to talk to and pray with a couple of my friends about what God is doing in their lives. God is so great, and he is so powerful. Sometimes, it can be easy to forget just how mighty God is, especially when we limit our faith in him, but it does not change who he is or what he can and wants to do for his children. It was remarkable and awe inspiring to see God working in the lives of my friends, working with power. I don't think either of them knew this, but God used them as a reminder of his faithfulness and his desperate desire to redeem this fallen world. God is good.
Yeah. God is so good.
After these conversations, God set a song in my heart, one I have not heard in a very long time, but one which deserves to be sung more often. It is one that I personally love, and with a lot of things on my mind, it brought me a great deal of joy:

Hallelujah
Jesus is alive
Death has lost its victory
And the grave has been denied
Jesus lives forever
He's alive! He's alive!

He's the Alpha and Omega
The first and last is he
The curse of sin is broken
And we have perfect liberty
The lamb of God is risen
He's alive, He's alive!

Jesus is alive!

On What I Learned from a Man Named Cummings

So, a couple posts ago, I alluded to some thoughts to be developed later. This post still has nothing to do with those thoughts. Apparently, they are developing much more slowly then I anticipated when I posted that. I also fear that when those thoughts finally come, it will be such a great belching forth of my thoughts, that no one will have the patience to read it all. Ah well, until then I shall continue to provide little snippets of reflection or pieces of my life.
This poem was inspired by a speaker I heard last Friday. The analogy he made was by no means a new one, but something about how he said it triggered my poetic urge. However, I did not write about it that day. Instead, I wrote another poem that had been churning inside of me for some time. Nor did I write about it the next day. That day, I wrote a poem about thought and ideas slipping away before I had a chance to set them down. I've written several poems like that. It seems to be a recurring worry for me. Even yesterday, I did not set down this inspiration. I wrote about sand, loosely in reference to time. It was a cheep analogy but I think I served it well. I hope. Anyway, it took until today for me to finally figure out what structure would hold together the shell of a poem I was contriving, so I wrote it down. I am not sure if its finished form is quite what I thought it would be when I began, but I am just glad that it is finally on paper, and now it shall be online as well.

Being

come to me
all you men and women of the earth
come
and fall
on your knees before me
worship me
for my power is endless
and my reach knows no bounds
i have risen to the highest
and you shall all be my servants
for i
am
god
and you shall obey me
or i will cast you away
and you
will suffer
alone
i am your lord
and i command worship
from all
please me
and i shall show you favour
but i will never fulfill you
i will
never
give you life
for i
am man
and i cannot
i am merely
man
you can sacrifice to me
and i will accept your offerings
i will take even more
and when you have nothing left to give
i will cast you away nonetheless
and we
shall suffer
alone
for my power is fleeting
and my reach will fail
no matter how i cling
the cracks will widen
give way
i will fall
in the end
even i
am a slave
a slave to myself
and i work myself mercilessly
trying to gain more power
trying to gain more praise
trying to gain more pleasure
trying
but even i
still suffer
alone
i am in the dark
with all the scum
the ones that I look down on
the low
and the filthy
the weak
but i am one of them
and we all
are
gods
for ourselves alone
fighting for supremacy
struggling
climbing
to rise to the highest
to look down on all
but it's all just king of the hill
king of the landfill
and we're pushing each other down
and we cry
we weep in the dark
we suffer
alone
in the dark
and i will
suffer
alone
in the dark
forever
if i don't
come to him
come
and fall on my knees before him
worship him
for he will fulfill me
he will
give me
life
only he can
he is
God
and only he is free
for only he is love
and he
loves me
how can i not worship him?
how can man not?

On Illumination

The thoughts to which I alluded in my last post are still forthcoming. However, I recently wrote a multilayered poem of which I am rather proud and indeed a bit fond, so I thought I would share it.

Illumination

The light above the sink
Shines a pallid white
Casting a soulless gleam
Like an impersonal authority
Bidding me hush
Be quiet
Sit still
When I look in the mirror
The light bears over me
Inspecting
But quietly
In silent judgement
And by its sickly rays
I see a face
As drained of colour
As these white walls
Grey stone
Painted a semi-gloss white
These walls are dying
Breathing weakly
And gasping
Their last struggle
Illuminated by the hollow fluorescence
The putrid light
that sticks in my throat
Dry
And insufferable
Washing out colour
Like winter washes away autumn
Burying all
In cold sterility
And the light glares unmercifully
Creeping up my spine
If I try to look away
Even the shadows it casts
Are smothered ghosts
Wafts of smoke
That scream and die

I need the sun
I need it to shine
Shine
That its warmth
May fall all around me
Resting on my skin
And wrapping an arm around me
Like a brother
Offering comfort
Offering love
For the sun will stifle death
Piercing winter's shroud
And calling forth colour
Life
Sweeping away the remembrance of bondage
Of so many evils
To stand in the open air
In the sunlight
And feel the rebirth of the soul
As the sun gives us sight
Waking us from our empty dreams
Into truth
That withers our man made rays
And shows them for what they are
Fragile
Lifeless
A misrepresentation
Of what it attempts to imitate
Somewhere
We forgot
We lost track of what real lights are
And filled our lives with artificial meaning
Manufactured illumination
A light that is not white
But blank
And I call out for the sun

On Thoughts to be Developed Later

With our firm foundation on the Declaration of Independence, we here in America tend to set freedom as our highest virtue.
Sometimes I wonder if this is entirely a good thing.

On the Post-Modern World

I can't believe I passed by my 50th blog post without even realizing it. Now I won't be able to celebrate a marker until I reach 100, whenever that comes. Ah well, perhaps it is better this way.
The following poem started out mostly as an experiment in style and vocabulary, but I really liked what came out of it, I am not sure if I think it is done, but I am finally going to post it and see if it gets a reaction. Maybe it is silly of me to expect one and even sillier to admit it, but now that I have, please feel free to tell me what you think, or if it even makes any sense at all.

The Nebulous Malaise

I am the phantasmagoric
Image of the waning
Light that rains in destitute
Shards as I shake my jaded
Fist at all the lofty
Dust in the broken
Derelict
Death
Wears a tragically ornate
Masquerade among the foolhardy
Confidants who think that their vapid
Silence amounts to more than the gleaming
Fragility of modern
Aspiration
Hunger
Gnaws in all the shouting
Hearts that palpitate beneath the shadowed
Egos in their corrupt
Dungeons as the transcendental
Cowards avoid the dreadful
Genuine because fractured
Comprehension refuses the bloody
Truth
Burdens
Plummet through the everlasting
Darkness with flabbergasted
Souls who battled fitful
Time beneath the ever watchful
Fate they fashioned with a purloined
Pestle by beating out the obtuse
Beauty of incomprehensible
Uniqueness
Shadows
Poison the disconcordant
Avenues where the effervescent
Lightning lies in murky
Heaps with the malused
Thunder as the ostentatious
Shroud defenestrates sacred
Hope
Loss
Permeates the distant
Spirit of former
Idealism with a stagnant
Disillusionment as the raucous
Sea consumes the flailing
Stragglers clinging to an irresolvable
Nothing
Distance
Hides behind falsified
Proximity when the opaque
Faces dissemble with practiced
Barriers before dissipating like stifling
Smoke to which we give our metamorphosed
Worship though it hangs like beggared
Loneliness
Pursuit
Continues in the labyrinthine
Twilight where I find the perpetual
Derision and the looming
Menace of colluding
Fears
Light
Illumines the broken
Vagabonds and leads their belaboured
Spirits through overbearing
Shame where I am found in tattered
Knowledge with discarded
Logic of the striving
Generations who have led me to this brutal
Juncture and I finally discern the repulsive
King whose humiliated
Body shows the immaculate
Source of long-awaited
Life

On Transforming Worldviews

The world is changed.

Every now and then, something happens, an event or an internal exploration, that makes a person question their worldview. It is usually the occurrence of something contradictory to and unexplainable by their opinions and understandings, though sometimes it can come about by self-assessment. When this occurs, a person has no choice but to adjust their worldview in order to understand this new happening.

Today...I ate Chinese food....and liked it.

On Feeling Bedraggled

I realize that I have been quite negligent with my blogs lately. It is a fact that bothers me quite a bit, especially considering the recent stretches where I was quite productive. Perhaps it was because I had more time. The month of February is a monster that I have still not yet tamed. In fact, thus far it has done a pretty good job of tossing me around like a chew toy. I am so very drained, and I feel like in every aspect of life I am just trying to catch up. I keep having to remind myself to rely on Jesus. He will pull me through whether I can see the possibility or not. I trust him.
As a side note, if anyone who reads this ever contemplates being both set designer and assistant stage manager for the same show, I would strongly caution you against it. You do not want that kind of stress in your life.
On the up side. If I make it through this week, then I have made it to Spring Break, that glorious time of year for which students across the world desperately hope. To sleep, to write, to see LA. Yes, that's right. My Spring Break plans now include a trip to sunny California, and I shall finally see the ocean.
The ocean.
I cannot wait.

On the Future

Desperation

Where are you, God?
Where are you?
Are you here?
Yes.
I'm sure of it
So close
you're near
I'll find you yet
I will
I'll find you
here
On these pages
Through these words
Within these verses
Where are you?
I'm striving
Striving to reach you
I need
To lay my hands upon you
Just a touch
Let my finger graze your skin
your robe
Even that
And I will be made whole
I'm writing
With a desperation
Hoping
Frantically hoping
That I will find you in these lines
That it will all somehow make sense
Somehow
I'm stepping Out
Not sure
Where my foot will land
If my foot will land
Or sink
Down
Down
Into the deep
But you're here
Calling
Striving
Stretching out your hand
To mine
And you're calling me
To follow
So I write
Not knowing
where my words will land
If my words will land
Or sink
And drag me
Down
Down
In the dark
But I need you
Need you
I need you so desperately
So I will play the fool
Just to get to you
The pages
Will pile up around me
No matter what
I'll write
I will write
Because you are so close
So very close
And my need is stronger
Than this paltry wall
So I dig
Through the roof
Digging down
Down
Because you're on the other side
So near
And you're waiting there
For me
If only
I could break
Through
Then this would all make sense
I'm sure of it
For you'll be there
It will all make sense
I'll find you
I need to
I need
Faith
For I'm still in the fog
I believe
Lord, help my unbelief
You gave me a pen
And told me to find you
So I will
I'll write until it all makes sense
I'll write until I find you
You
I'll know you
And my words
Will speak
Your name
Your name like food
To fill the soul
O Lord
I need you, Lord
Desperately
So I'll write
I'll write until I find you
Till you are in the words
God
Come
Please
I need you

I wrote this poem in church on Sunday. I always like the poems I end up writing during sermons. They do not always reflect what the speaker was discussing, but they usually turn out good nonetheless.
This particular poem sums up a lot of what God has been doing in my life of late. I don't know if it all comes across to someone who is not me, but this really describes where I am. Generally speaking, I try to avoid looking too far into the future. Sometimes this can be an annoyance to those in my life who want me to make plans, and when it is necessary, I do look to the future, but usually it just causes worry, something I do not want in my life at all. It just so happens that lately, my future, specifically what I am going to do after graduation, has become a recurring question in my life. I did not necessarily see the pattern until my roommate posed the question yesterday. We were talking about a drawing project on which I was working, and he just asked me, "What is it you actually want to do? You write, you act, you design sets, you draw comic art...what do you want to do?"
I do not know.
The easy answer is that I want to write. Most of the time that is what I tell people, especially those who are only casually interested. However, when those close to me ask something, I usually give it a more careful inspection. In this instance, I was shocked out how unsure I actually was. Yes. I still want to write, but I will be doing that no matter what my occupation is. But just what sort of career do I actually hope to pursue?
I do not know.
Unlike so many students who come to college with no idea what they want to study and then gradually figure it out as they find themselves, I fall into the category of those who come to college knowing exactly what I want to do, and have since just gotten more and more confused. Most of this stems from my theatrical involvements. I love the theatre, and I have already given so much of myself to it that it would almost seem a travesty to give up those pursuits once I graduated. I am still not even a theatre major, but I might as well be. I act enough like it anyway.
Fortunately, ever since this summer God has been encouraging me in this area. I forget every now and then, but he is faithful to remind me that I am in his hands. God has reassured me that I will be able to use my writing to serve him and to reach people, even though right now I don't know how. So that is largely what this poem is about. I shall keep writing, creating, and keep pursuing God, and surely the two will converge, and then I will understand God's leading. Then it will all make sense.