12/30/15

My goal of posting every Sunday I'm only three days late.
I've had a lot of thoughts in that time and I'm not sure if I remember all of them.
Writing this letters, it's always hard to find the balance between living my life and reflecting on it.

I woke up Christmas Eve morning in the room I grew up waking up in Wauseon. My parents asked me to go through my stuff in the basement and decide what I wanted to keep and what I wanted to throw away. I walked down in to the basement and the area I had created and made my own space since Christmas of 2004 was completely taken over by Carter Lumber stuff. My dad had moved his office from the store to the basement.

I sorted through my stuff throwing away 99% of it keeping all my high school memories, ninja turtle toys, and old video game stuff. The perfect mix of nostalgia and hopeful memorabilia. At first I was kinda sad my dad had destroyed my fortress of solitude. I had taken a place in the house no one wanted and I made it my favorite. But now it was all gone.

But I had never seen my dad like this before. My memories of my dad growing up consisted of him waking up and leaving for work at an hour I didn't know existed in the morning, getting home around 6:15 for dinner then settling in to his couch for the evening to either watch whatever sporting event was on or some network sitcom. My dad rarely went on family vacations and his hobbies, from my perspective, were mowing the lawn and drinking at the V.F.W. once a week.

But this was a different man. He not only spent Christmas eve in that basement but he spent the entire time I was home down there. Organizing, setting up, remembering. It was actually really great to see. It was passion in my dad. I saw interest. He never cared what style of couch he sat on, nor the size of the TV he looked at. But this was different. My mom bought him a scrap book for Christmas, it's what he asked for...
...what he asked for?
My dad NEVER asked for anything for Christmas, never asked for anything ever... out of the 28 years I've been alive and the 26 Christmases I've spent watching my dad open presents in the morning I've only ever seen socks, sweat shirts, underwear, and pajama pants now he's excited to go through all his photos and put them in a scrap book? Who is this man?

I loved it. But I couldn't stop thinking about it. My dad's identity since he was a teenager was working at that lumber yard. It's who he was. Now it was taken from him. I wonder what that felt like? I wonder what he thought...

I wanted to sit down there and watch the man go through all of his memories. I wanted to watch his face as he finally reached the end of his career. That's my dad. The man who's blood runs in my veins, I lived with the man, I worked with him, and yet it's like he has this whole life I never knew about. Honestly I'm afraid to ask about. My family has such a surface depth to it. What would happen if I attempted to break the ice and dive deeper?

For instance the day after Christmas my mom made me drive to Toledo to fix the airbag in my car because of a recall. Of course my dad wanted to stay home so it was my mother, my brother and me driving around Toledo while we waited for my car to be fixed. My mom rode with me to drop off the car while my brother followed to drive us around while we waited. My mom asked a bit about school, she asked about me being single, she told me she ran into Whitney's mom somewhere and they talked about how her whole marriage went down. I told my mom that's one of the reasons why I may not get married.

Later Tyler joins us in the car and conversation. He starts talking like marriage is very simple, very easy, you just have to pick the right person...I almost bit my tongue off as I struggled not to break the ice of our surface family. What if I said something like I wouldn't want a marriage that looks anything like yours? What would he say if I opened up, or if I asked him questions about his marriage? Just thinking about asking these type of questions to my family makes me cringe. Imagine asking my mom why she never had a desire to sleep next to the man she married and has loved since 1982?

This is also why I shied away from bringing up Thanksgiving, Brian, Planned Parenthood, and marriage equality.

On Christmas day we made a visit to my dad's mom, grandma. These visits are never easy for me. Seeing a person at the last act of their life. Her days consist of trips from her nursing home to the hospital and back. It makes me very nervous. In a blink, if I'm lucky, that will be me.

My brother married without kids
My mom established in her career
My dad retired and wondering what's next
My grandma widowed in a nursing home

and me, turning 28 and looking at these family members each in a stage of life that I will one day be in. Nothing I can do to stop it. Time moves forward, always. Blink and I will be married, Blink and I will be 30 years deep in a career, blink and I will be retired, blink and I will be battling my body to exist.
...Then...stop blinking.

This Christmas my parents really surprised me by helping me pay for some of my transmission fix. This whole time I was stranded in Columbus for Thanksgiving because of it and it really hurt me financially. I lamented the entire time to my mom about the situation. I didn't ask for help and I didn't expect any. Then out of nowhere I opened the gift. I almost cried. I've never felt that emotional over a gift my parents have given me. Usually it's cash or pure childhood excitement over the 1996 Nintendo 64. I was and still am deeply moved by it. I had to hold back my tears and I couldn't make eye contact to thank them.

I've always hated money. I've always wished I didn't have any and don't want any. But despite how much I hate it, it is a fact of life. Living paycheck to paycheck can create so much stress and anxiety. It can change a man. Create a scarcity mentality that can do some damage mentally. I'm not trying to act like I even know what it's like to be in poverty but receiving that financial help moved me. A part of me hated how much I was relieved. I shouldn't be this happy about filthy money...but at the same time a part of me embraced the emotions my body was experiencing. It was interesting. I want to have that sort of security, or that sort of burden relief for my children one day. Now I know what that feels like and I want them to share this experience.

Lastly, on this insanely long letter about my holiday weekend at home, I got a fitbit for Christmas. It can read my heart rate. Now that I am constantly aware of my heart I'm kind of freaking out. It beats so many times per minute, all the time...what if it stopped? What if it failed? I'm gone... I want to get my BPM down to 60. I think that will be my resolution for the new year. This muscle beating inside of me sustaining my existence, why have I never thought about it before? I need to work it out, I need to treat it right. I am 28... the years won't be getting any easier from here on out.
We are dust.

Wake Owl - Wild Country

12/20/15

On This Sunday last year I was in Oklahoma eating breakfast around OKC.
On This Sunday two years ago I was in Nebraska drinking coffee in Omaha.
This year I am staying in Ohio. I haven't spent Christmas morning with my family since 2012.

After all of this drama went down about Thanksgiving my Mother showed her hand a little to me and expressed how rough holidays have been since Tyler and I moved out. She misses her own family, her parents, her siblings.

I've been thinking about that recently. I wonder what it's like to watch your children grow and leave the nest. 18 Christmases routinely the same and then...different.

Mom also told me my dad's lumberyard was closed this fall. That store had been my father's life as long as I'd known him. I wonder what my dad is feeling watching the trucks haul away the place he's spent most of his life.

And there they are, my parents
one of them wishes she was in Missouri with her family
the other lost his store, the place he spent all his time
Their children are 3 hours away in the Capitol city
One is married and splits time between family Christmases
The other travels around the country alone sleeping in his car

Is this what I have to look forward to?
Marrying someone, raising our children together, slowly growing apart and watching our children leave to rarely visit?

Then I think of my grandma, my dad's mom, she's in the retirement home. She has her own room with a TV. I don't know how often she gets visitors or family sees her. I don't know if she likes or knows the people in the place with her. I wonder what it's like to have children and your children to have children with your spouse dead and you're tired, old, in front of a TV.

Then I take a look at my life.
I'm at the edge of my 20's
I think about the next steps of my life.
I think about my 30's 40's 50's 60's 70's and 80's
My parents' lives
my grandparents' lives
is this my future? Can I do anything to change it? Maybe I should have more children in hopes that one of them will stick around.

I think all of these has really made me realize the value in my squad. If I'm going to end up in a retirement home I want to be with them. If I'm going to end up deserted by my children I want to spend the holidays with them. It also puts a hell of a lot more pressure on finding the right wife. That's a lot of hours spent together. A LOT. Years and Years and Years together. How do we not get sick of each other? What is love? Does that strong of love even exist? I don't know how many married couples I know that have the kind of marriage I'd like to have for myself. Obviously there is always Sarah and Doug Dicken. The marriage of hope. How did they do it? How do I find that?

Shovels & Rope - Lay Low

12/17/15

I'm finally getting over strep throat. This has been an awful week.
While I was laid up I watched the finale of Sopranos.
I can't stop thinking about it.
I love it, I think it's the perfect ending...
and I hate it, It plays upon my deepest fears I'm struggling with now.

I wonder if that's what it's like to die. For Tony to be shot like that sitting with his family waiting for his daughter. Black, silent.
nothing.

It makes me so uncomfortable. It makes me feel really alone. I have a difficult time getting the words out of my head and into words. I don't know.
How does his family react?
How do the strangers react?
What does his funeral look like?
Does Meadow become a lawyer?
Does A.J. stick with his new job?
Is Carmela taken care of?
We don't get to know these things, we will never get to know these things because Tony is dead.
Once death happens that's it. That's the end.
It's either the answer to every question or the end of them.

Either we are the present times current form of matter, or more.

turning 28 has been different than other birthdays. I think I'm really feeling this one. My mind has shifted. When I would see guys in public or where ever, TV, whatever my whole life I've assumed I was younger than them. If I'm around people in a bar or a party I'm on the younger side. I don't think like that anymore. Now I assume I'm on the older side of things. I assume at parties or bars I'm one of the older people here. I don't get carded when I go out anymore. I'm a year and 11 months away from no longer saying I'm a 20 something. I've been a 20 something for so long and now that is coming to an end. What's next?

What will my face look like? What will my body look like? Laying on the couch for a week while my throat healed made me think a lot about this stuff. I was sapped of energy I didn't feel like myself. Is that how older people feel? I watch the energy of the preschoolers and I wonder if that is how people 20 years older than me view me.

Yesterday I called my Grandpa. my mom's dad to thank him for the Christmas and birthday cards. I told him I'd just turned 28. He said he doesn't even remember 28 with a laugh. I think he will be 82 in July. 82, to live so long you can't remember 28 and here I am at 28 and I feel like something is ending. What would my grandpa do if he were 28 again? What would he have to say to me about doing it differently? 82, I can't imagine that age at this point. I have a hard time swallowing 30.

Sometimes I wish my brain was more like other people's. How do they not think about this stuff? Why can't I just live?

Dustin Kensrue - It's Not Enough

12/08/15

Earth has been many different planets in its long history a water world before large-scale continents had formed; a "snowball" phase with extreme glaciation; and a world shrouded in smoke after a large asteroid impact. Today; one day losing its oceans as the sun becomes hotter; and a final scorched Earth.

I can find no peace in this reality. If there is nothing after death I can't even rest in the idea that I am part of the scaffolding leading this Earth to a greater future. Even in the future the Earth will end. Everything has an end. The question remains, what happens after the end?

Today I learned that the other male teacher at the early childhood center was fired. I can't describe how pissed I am about this. I'm meeting with HR to talk about it. I guess that's why I'm writing on here. I'm emotional and I need a place to release.

If God is real where is the justice? We work in a church for God's sake! Where are you? What did you do with all of his prayers and the prayers of the other members of the center? You opened and read them like boring birthday cards and threw them away? He loved his job and the children loved him. They still accidentally call me his name. Where is the God of justice? Where are the representatives of Christ in the church showing redemption and love?

Cowards. Spineless selfish cowards. Protecting and minimizing risk. What a joke. What would Jesus say about this? If You are there, if You hear me...what do you have to say?

It's all part of the plan?
Of course everything is part of 'the plan' but what is the ultimate goal of this eternal plan? I'm so angry and confused. Why him and not me? What is the difference? If anything he's a more qualified teacher. He went to school for it. He's the lead. I'm only an assistant.

I'm guessing you have another door for him huh? Something bigger and better? Always bigger and better, always brighter, more hope. And as another year of my life comes to a close I'm beginning to wonder when the scale tips the other way. One day my life will be more done than undone. Where will be the Big bright plan for tomorrow then? What will I have to look forward to? My job, retired, my family, raised, my wife, dead. What will be left to do in life? Help make the world a better place? We are all just waiting for that time bomb of a sun to turn on us and roast this blue dot into a desert.

I write these letters to myself in the future. I do it every year on my birthday. This year something strange happened. I read the letter I wrote myself when I had just turned 27. It made me sad. I've changed so much. I read the way I use to think, the way I use to write. It was beautiful. Everything I said had so much depth and meaning. Everything seemed to have passion and purpose behind it. I look back and compare the letter I wrote a year ago vs the letter I wrote last week. They are written by two different people.

I want to hope, I want to have faith. But I can't find it.
I see this situation with my friend who was fired wrongfully and it makes me despair. It makes me angry. What would I have thought about it last year? How would I feel? Who am I becoming and who was I?

God where are You?
Father.
Creator.
Artist.
Romantic.
Where are You? Where is the fire down in my soul?
Do we even have souls?
I want us to have souls.

Future of Forestry - The Earth Stood Still

12/02/15

Dear 29 year old Adam,

I've just turned 28. This year began with the shaving of my #yearofthebeard14 and an Ohio State national championship. I went on a trip to Egypt. #nilestylewithkyle. Easter weekend Bea and I started dating again. I was accepted into Ashland's Bachelor plus teacher licensure program. We got the plot next to the Arawak garden thus doubling our land for this season. I spent Memorial Day weekend in Colorado with Bea and her mom. Brian was ordained in June and both Brian and Travis finished their masters degrees. Same sex marriage was legalized this year. We went to Folly Beach for 4th of July weekend. Bea and I broke up in early October. Sealscott got married at St. Pete Beach in Florida. This fall has been insane. All I do is work then come home and study for 3-4 hours a night. Brian moved to Cincinnati and Ellen moved to Cleveland. Lauren (Brian's ex) lived with us for the month of September then Claire moved in. Now it's Melissa, Travis, Claire, and I still at 407 Tibet Rd. Marijuana was on the ballot but didn't pass in Ohio. Probably will next year. My Cars transmission died so I spent Thanksgiving alone in Columbus.

Things I'm doing now:
I'm still working at the VECC at the church. I'm in school to get my license for teaching. I've been struggling a lot this year. If you couldn't tell by reading my thoughts this past year. I'm so confused. The older I get the more blurry truth seems to be. I'm not sure if this is just a season and on the other side of it I will become more tempered or if it only gets more confusing as life goes. I guess we will see won't we? Man I've been thinking a lot about death and the very finite amount of time I have left in this life. Even as you are reading this now it means we are one year closer to the end. It's strange to think as I can just click one button and read the thoughts of the younger man I once was but that's as real as it gets. I can't go back none of us can. We move forward. It's all we can do whether we want to or not. One day I will read this and think back to when I was in school to be a teacher. One day will be my last day in my career. One day will be my last day as a student. The present is so fleeting. How strange and difficult to imagine my 60th birthday but one day it will be behind me and all of this will have seemed to be such a quick blur. Sorry I suppose I'm supposed to be talking about what I am doing now. I'm single. I'm not sure how I even feel about marriage at this point. So much uncertainty in it. Which is the more rewarding route to stay with someone until we die or to let them go and grow as they please? I guess the main things currently are work and school. I know what I want to be and I'm taking those steps that's been the focus. That and deepening my roots with my friends.

Things I hope you're doing:
I hope you passed that damn CORE test we have to take next year. I also hope you're about to start your student teaching in the spring preparing to graduate and find a job! I hope you still hang out with your friends as much as you are right now. I hope you gardened more next season. Do you still have the long hair? I'd assume you do because I'm really loving it right now. I wonder if you're still single. No pressure either way. I wonder if you've found any peace with this whole death issue. I wonder if you still stress and wonder about it before you sleep and when you run. I hope you're still practicing the guitar I did a terrible job with that this year but maybe you will do better. I hope you managed to travel some place new this year maybe not out of the country but a new place to hike or camp. Damn you're in your last year of your 20's now...I wonder what that's like? I've always talked up my 30's and how great they are going to be but since it's just us right now I can be real and say I have a huge fear of getting old. I've never been in my 30's before... Try to think about when you're 60 and how you will view your 30's I'm sure your perspective will be much more soft. I'm just glad I'm not turning 29 right now. But the time will come as always we move forward. I hope you bought two jars and some pebbles. One jar filled with a pebble for each month you've lived, the other jar with the pebble of how many months left until I'm 85. We need to put some perspective into this short single life.

Things I've learned since turning 27:
What the hell have I learned? I feel like I learned how much I don't know. I've learned that maybe everything I've known is wrong. What does that mean? I've learned the value of my friendships or as we are calling it now my squad. I've learned that finding someone isn't the most important thing in life. But I don't know what the most important thing is. I want you to remember all of those horrible fights with exgirlfriends. Remember that time you drove over to Bea's house and she was so pissed at you. You sat with her on her front steps. She wouldn't look at you, she wouldn't speak to you. She wouldn't let you put your hand on her back. What if your marriage got to that point? What if there was no fixing it? I've been watching the Sopranos I just watched the episode where Carmela finally had enough of Tony's neglect. That episode was really powerful to me. Imagine how he made his wife feel. How terrible her stomach must have hurt. Imagine being kicked out of your own house sleeping on the couch of a friends or in a hotel. Kicked out of your own home. Imagine how your children would handle it. Marriage and children are such huge releases of control. What would it be like to live with someone you have no control over? What would it be like if one day she was throwing all of my things in the driveway and telling me I couldn't be inside my own home with my own wife and my own kids. We only get one shot at this life. I never want to experience that in this one life. I'm going to work very hard to make sure I don't end up in a marriage like that. Adam listen to me, I don't care how much older you get before marriage, living alone would be infinitely better than hearing the woman you've committed your life to tell you she doesn't want you anymore. Remember that fight with Whitney when you were in college when you were at her house and she just walked into the woods behind her house? Ugh We've had some terrible fights and we've caused such pain to the women we've loved. It's kinda crazy to think about how much power we have, more than we probably know and how much power we give also. So many ugly fights, how ugly I am capable of becoming... Anyway as a working adult student who has finally found what I want to pursue as a career I guess what I have learned in everything is, don't rush it. Don't rush any part of life. Don't rush the career. Don't rush marriage. Don't rush buying a house. Don't rush children. Slow down and do it right the first time so you only have to do it once. Because let's face it Adam we only get to do it once. Don't rush but don't let it slip by. As Special Agent Dale Cooper says in Twin Peaks, "I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don’t plan it, don’t wait for it, just let it happen. It could be a new shirt at the men's store, a catnap in your office chair or two cups of good hot black coffee." I love you Adam, everything will be alright. I hope this letter finds you well.

1987 Born
1988 00
1989 01
1990 02
1991 03
1992 04
1993 05
1994 06 Started Grade School
1995 07
1996 08
1997 09
1998 10
1999 11
2000 12
2001 13
2002 14
2003 15
2004 16
2005 17
2006 18 Graduated High School
2007 19
2008 20
2009 21
2010 22 Graduated College
2011 23
2012 24
2013 25
2014 26
2015 27

11/29/15

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
-Robert Frost

If my mind zooms out too far I think about how we are a speck of nothing inside of a massive nothing.
If my mind zooms in too far I am overwhelmed at the energy spent, the complexity of my sustained existence.
Then if my mind switches gears from the academic discipline of natural science to poetry within the branch of humanities my mind becomes even more encumbered. I read this poem over and over and I find such beauty. I find such meaning. This was written by a temporary form of organic matter existing on Earth for a moment in time. That's it?

I don't believe it. My mind feels like the Stanza della Segnatura holding all of this contradiction in one room.
Sometimes when I look at these celebrities in articles or the news I imagine them stripped down. Stripped of their titles, stripped of their designer clothes, stripped of their apathetic confidence in their lack of hunger. stripped of their security. What are they? Their hearts are just as fragile as a deer's. Their lungs just as dependent on that next breath as a rabbit. We are all so powerless. I imagine how we would view these people if they ate stooped to the ground shoveling with their bare hands. Would we view our selves so elevated from the rest of life on the planet if we didn't strive so much to separate ourselves?

In the cold dark wilderness of the woods far from civilization and social obligations Frost contemplates stopping. Giving it all up. We as humans fight so hard to create this division from the world.
We cut our hair,
we trim our nails,
we shave our bodies,
we put on costumes,
we prepare our meals on plates with napkins
we bring the food to our mouths with utensils
But in this moment for just a second Frost, as all of us have also considered, what if I gave up? What if I stopped fighting the current? What if I quit? But I can't. We can't. Our domesticated animal brings us back into focus with the shaking of harness bells.

Our bodies so crave rest. Our natural selves plead for the satisfaction of every desire of the body.
Lust
Gluttony
Sloth
Death

But to live is to fight. This is why the healthy food isn't as sweet as candy. This is why the evening jog burns. This is why the morning bed grasps so tight.

We must shave, we must brush, we must dress, we must stand upright rebelling the pull of gravity. Because we exist. Because we are. Because there is more than just a pale blue dot floating in nothing. Because we are more than just the sum of trillions of cells.
Because we have miles to go before we sleep.

NOVO AMOR - From Gold

11/23/15

A week of ups and downs.
I find out my mom doesn't want to go to the family Thanksgiving this year because of that stupid facebook fight with Brian.
I finish my first semester of school I think I got straight A's we'll see.
My transmission on my car dies so today I took the day off work to watch it get towed away.
Now I have the day off to write on here which I told myself I'd like to do more of.

Neil deGrasse Tyson - A Brief History of Everything


For reasons unknown that fraction of a pin hole of our universe started expanding.
String theory?
Casual sets?
CDT?
Non-commutative geometry?
Shape Dynamics?
Loop quantum gravity?
Epoch of inflation
photons to matter and antimatter back to photons
something else unknown happened the cycle was somehow broken and matter got the edge over antimatter. Without this edge our universe would be light and nothing.
The earth perfectly in its liquid water zone somehow created anaerobic bacteria. This bacteria perfectly changed the atmosphere of Earth to one with oxygen. With this new atmosphere life as we know it could exist.
a meteorite hit the Yucatán Peninsula creating the Chicxulub crater which killed all the dinosaurs and allowed us humans to evolve.

And that's where we are today. That's it. That is why we exist. We exist to die.
These gaps in modern science...do I attribute them to God?
Do I say God started the expanding?
God tipped the matter antimatter scale?
God placed the earth in the right zone for water?
God kick started the anaerobic bacteria for life on Earth?

The God of the gaps. As science learns and expands it pushing God into the small cracks. Using God as a placeholder until someone figures it out...

Is that how it is? I am the present times current form of the photon, matter, antimatter beginning? I am the current state of the carbon found on the earth that will one day change form to become something else like a tree.

What is consciousness?
What is ontology?
But why?

Sleeping at Last - Keep No Score

11/15/15

Yeah I think about the end just way too much
I've been thinking too much help me

Life is just so strange.
What do I even do with it?

twenty one pilots: Ride

11/08/15

I'm going to try to do a better job writing on here each week. I think it's good for me and it's what I want to do.

Carl Sagan - Pale Blue Dot


Inner Life Of A Cell


37.2 trillion cells that make up what I am.
The observable universe is 13.8 billion light years.

What is existence? How is this possible? How does this make sense? I'm moving 18.5 miles a second around the sun on this planet with everyone else all the while my body is make up of trillions of cells all working nonstop.

And for what?
For me to breathe one more time?
For me to eat one more meal?
For me to sit on my ass watching football?
For me to attempt to become the ruler of this dot for a point in time?
For what?
Why?
All of this for what? We live to die so that others can live to die until our sun burns out?

God, I need You. Speak to me. Give me faith. Give me hope. Give me reason.

From Indian Lakes - Runner

11/01/15

I should be doing homework.
I never write on here anymore.
I wish I did.
often.

Nights have been hard for me lately.
I can't stop thinking about death.
Every morning I wake up and I try to imagine what it would be like to not.
What was it like to be asleep.
Did I feel like I was missing out?
Did I miss those I love?
Did I exist?
I can't stop thinking about God.

This struggle within me. How can anyone with any certainty know what's next?

The bible teaches divorce is bad, but I have seen how good it can be.
The bible teaches homosexuality is bad, but I have seen beautiful love there.
The bible teaches not to get drunk, but I have seen community in the party.
The bible teaches a man is the head, but I have seen such leadership from women.

My tiny little lens. It's all I have, my speck of experience. What do I know? What can I know? My brain thinks with such authority within me. I convince myself I am so wise. My brain drawling conclusions, making decisions, ha what does my brain know?

What happens when we die?
What is all of this? Life?

Are you telling me that this tiny blue planet swinging around the sun in the middle of an expanding nothing just happened thanks to gravity and time?

This is it? Every word, every brush mark, every kiss, all of this when we end it ends?
Why do we do what we do?
Why love if they will die?
Why build if it will fall?
Why learn when I will forget?

If this is it then why?
What are we doing?
What can we do? What makes life worthwhile if life is all that we have?
This can't be. I can't accept this.
There is more, something. There must be. We are more than dust. There is something different about us. We bare an image. The image. This is what's false. This, not after, now. This life must be the illusion.

doubt, faith, how tiresome.
I miss you God.

Kodaline - High Hopes

10/11/15

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

-Mary Oliver

In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.
-Robert Frost

We make choices and they cannot be undone.
Those choices shape our lives.
And life no matter the choices, goes on.

Expect until death, then what?
What is the sum of all choices in a life?
Death?
That math isn't good, there must be something.

Sleeping At Last - Emphasis

10/03/15

School is my life right now. I put in 3 hours a day during the week and 6 or so on the weekends. School as a working adult is no joke. Thankfully I don't have a wife or kids right now how do people do it?

Death inspires me like a dog inspires a rabbit.
But the interesting thing is, whether the dog catches the rabbit or not, death will still happen.

O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
-1 Corinthians 15

The sting is the unknown, the mystery. What kind of sting o death?
Who can say?
What sort of experiment?
What sort of research?
Death, what mystery is this?

Now we are cloning dogs, what does that mean as far as death is concerned?

Beach House - Myth

09/08/15

I broke up with Bea tonight.

How do we ever know if we made the right choices in this one short life God?

This really hurts. More than I thought it would.
She cried for me tonight. She's never done that before. Never.
She's cried when I hurt her. She's cried at beautiful things we've seen together but she's never cried at the loss of me before. She's always stood there like a cold statue as I've been the one to let the tears fall.

Tonight, finally, finally, she cries for me. She shows me that I matter to her...

We are family. I've known her since she was 19.

God she is such an amazing woman. She is great. She will be great.

She is so wise. Her heart is so big.

Oh God this wasn't supposed to hurt like this. She was the one who kept suggesting we weren't working, it wasn't healthy, it wasn't good.

There I was holding her as her tears soaked my sleeve...

I know you make all things work together for our good, but how do we know if we make the right choices? How do we know? Are there right and wrong choices?

I already miss her. She's a great woman. I know that she will grow with You.

This fucking sucks.

She was always so amazed at my certainty but I am so uncertain.

How can anyone be so arrogant as to be certain about things?

I wish I would talk to myself 50 years from now and see what he'd say about this night in our life. 77 year old Adam...

Here I am God. This is the choice I have made. Certain or not, right or not. I have made a choice.

Teach me how to trust you Jesus
free her heart
heal Bea
heal me

Josh Garrels - Benediction

08/30/15

I just put in my order for my mogado hi Oliberte shoes for this winter. I'm always thinking about what kind of world I'd like this to be and how I can impact the world to make it that way. I listen to Bernie Sanders and I hear him talk about what we are entitled to. What is owed to us.

Yes it is wrong for Colleges to cost so much for education. Yes it is wrong for the Government to charge so much interest on loans...

But at least there is a way to higher education. And there are cheaper options for college. There are state schools, there are community colleges, there are trade schools, there are online schools. There are scholarships, there are grants, there is free money out there as well.

Yes it is wrong for McDonalds to not pay their workers. Yes it is wrong for Wal-Mart to have children make the stuff in China then under pay your retail workers in America.

But who says I have to buy McDonald's?
Who says I have to support Wal-Mart?

We vote with our dollars and we are clearly voting yes to private expensive colleges and yes to slavery and underpaid workers with huge money going to the 1% at the top.

the 99% pays and supports the 1%. This is the truth.

Bernie Sanders preaches a message of envy.
A message of fear and scarcity. That there isn't enough and that because of them we can't or won't have enough.

But the power is in our hands. We control the market. We control the economy. We make the billionaires and we can destroy them as well.

Do I buy Folgers coffee for $3.94
Or fair trade from Lucky's Market for $10.99

Do I buy the Hanes T-Shirt Value 8-Pack for $12.46
Or 1 American Apparel Fine Jersey Short Sleeve T-Shirt for $18.00

Do I buy the Daxx Mens Square Toe Slip-on Dress Shoe for $36.99
Or do I buy the Mogado hi Oliberte for $140.00

Do I buy the 24 pack Coca-Cola Dasani plastic water bottles for $4.98
Or do I reuse my Nalgene bottle and fill it with tap water for $10.99

We make these decisions every day. Dozens of times a day.

Do we buy what is cheap to us but very costly to those who make it?
Or do we buy what costs more to us so that those who made it get paid what they should?

When we choose the simple selfish choice of the low price to us it not only costs the worker their freedom but it also inflates and grows the profit lines for the 1% corporations who are selling the stuff. We pick the convenient disposable option which costs our planet space in a landfill.

We make the billionaires and we can destroy them as well.

Even if we can't afford the price it takes to pay workers what they deserve there are other options such as thrift stores, garage sales, the options are out there.

Do I think it's messed up that the 1% owns so much of the wealth in this country? Absolutely!
Do I think our government should solve the issue? Nope.

Do I think it's wrong for college grads to have so much debt? Absolutely!
Do I think it should be paid for by the government taxing people? Nope.

We have the power, we have the choice.

I'm always thinking about what kind of world I'd like this to be and how I can impact the world to make it that way.
What kind of world do we want?

twenty one pilots: Goner

08/23/15

It’s a lot more pleasant to hear “yes.” That, in a nutshell, is why so many people struggle with this problem.

Confirmation Bias

This disappointment is a version of what psychologists and economists call confirmation bias. Not only are people more likely to believe information that fits their pre-existing beliefs, but they’re also more likely to go looking for such information. This experiment is a version of one that the English psychologist Peter Cathcart Wason used in a seminal 1960 paper on confirmation bias.

Most of us can quickly come up with other forms of confirmation bias — and yet the examples we prefer tend to be, themselves, examples of confirmation bias. If you’re politically liberal, maybe you’re thinking of the way that many conservatives ignore strong evidence of global warming and its consequences and instead glom onto weaker contrary evidence. Liberals are less likely to recall the many incorrect predictions over the decades, often strident and often from the left, that population growth would create widespread food shortages. It hasn’t.

We’re much more likely to think about positive situations than negative ones, about why something might go right than wrong and about questions to which the answer is yes, not no.

Sometimes, the reluctance to think negatively has nothing to do with political views or with a conscious fear of being told no. Often, people never even think about asking questions that would produce a negative answer when trying to solve a problem. They instead restrict the universe of possible questions to those that might potentially yield a “yes.”
-David Leonhardt, NY Times

I saw this article on Facebook this morning and I tried it out. Pretty interesting to think about how we can only see through our own lenses. And how we don't care to attempt to look through any other.

It makes me think how Atheists only look at information that continues to prove there is no God.
How Christians only look at information that continues to prove there is a God.

How do we honestly seek truth? How do we see it in it's truest form without a limited lens of senses like not seeing the color blue or hearing the words of another language?

Each day I grow closer and closer to death. Each day I learn more and more. The more I know the more I know I don't know. I don't know what I don't know. But I do know that I am getting older as each year passes me by and I do know that with death comes all the answers.

My hope is in You Jesus. This much is true. No matter what the evidence points to, no matter the lenses that look at the evidence. My hope, my hope is in You Jesus. I hope you defeated death. I hope you made a way. I hope for life after death. My hope in that life is in You Jesus.

Bear's Den - Elysium

08/15/15

I hate American politics.

The entire structure of it makes me sick, confuses, angers, and saddens me. Do I vote for the republican party that doesn't seem to have a heart, or do I vote for the democratic party that doesn't seem to have a brain?


There are 318.9 million Americans living in this country each one of them with a different view and life style. We are all told to choose between two confining parties that both encourage more laws, more rules, more control, more limitation. Meanwhile as each new law is passed Americans find loopholes and ways around the laws they don't like making all of it even more pointless. So we write more laws and we find more holes.

A mass shooting happens in the country and two sides are formed. One says we need more guns to fight the guns, the other says there should be no guns so there is no shootings. And Those are my options to choose from.

Employees of large companies aren't paid well while the CEO is paid a stupid amount. One says we need to force the CEO to pay the employees more. The other says that employee just needs to work harder to earn more money. And those are my options to choose from.

There are hungry poor people in our country. One says we should force everyone to pay for a government program. The other says they should work and take drug tests in order to eat. And those are my options to choose from.

Abortion, One says a woman has the right to choose if she wants the child to live or not. The other says the child has a right to live and the woman has no choice. And those are the options to choose from.

Assisted dying, One says if a person is uncomfortable they should have the option of ending their existence. The other says they must remain alive as long as possible no matter the pain. And those are the options to choose from.

Social Security, One says we should force everyone to pay for people's retirement. The other says people should save their money and receive no help.

Climate change, One says we should force everyone to limit how the use energy. The other says people should be able to use as much as they want.

War, One says we shouldn't have such a large military, the other says we need to keep fighting or we will be destroyed.

Our justice system is based more on money than justice. If you have the time and money to pay for lawyers and hearings then you will win. It has nothing to do with who is right who is wrong, who is guilty who is innocent. A guilty man can walk free because of a loophole. An innocent man can be murdered because of lack of evidence. And those are the options to choose from.

I could go on and on and on. I don't agree with any of this. It has been my experience that life has never been black and white for me yet our government is asking me to choose red or blue. Life isn't red or blue. I refuse to settle or compromise for the lesser of two evils. I refuse to choose red or blue.

I want people to have freedom. I want people to have choices. I am not okay with debt. I am not okay with war. But other people are so should I force the government to do exactly and only what I think our country should look like? Or can I be okay with compromise, disagreement and people living a different way than how I would?

And those are the options to choose from.

Noah Gundersen - Oh Death

08/08/15

Newborns are language universalists. Able to learn any sound in any language, they can distinguish all the sounds that humans utter. But adults are language specialists. Exposure to their native language reduces their ability to perceive speech sounds that are not in that native tongue. An English prototype sound is the vowel linguists write as "i," pronounced as in the word "fee." When an adult English speaker hears something very close to this "i" sound (as when the sound is spoken by someone with a head cold), the listener will hear the prototype "i" and not the slight variation. The prototype sound acts like a magnet, pulling all similar sounds into one mental slot for language processing. But the same is not true of foreign languages. Because English speakers have not memorized the prototype for a foreign vowel -- like the Swedish vowel "y" (an EE-sound pronounced with front-rounded lips), they can discern when the vowel is pronounced slightly differently. They have no "magnet" that makes the sounds identical. Using identical computer equipment to generate prototype Swedish and English sounds tested this magnet effect on 64 6-month-old babies in Sweden and the United States. American babies routinely ignored the different pronunciations of "i" because they heard it as the same sound. But they could distinguish slight variations in the "y" sounds. The exact opposite was true of the Swedish babies.They ignored the variations in "y" because they sounded the same, while they noticed the variations in "i."
-Dr. Patricia Kuhl of the University of Washington in Seattle

But do you really see something if you don't have a word for it? A researcher named Jules Davidoff traveled to Namibia to investigate this, where he conducted an experiment with the Himba tribe, which speaks a language that has no word for blue or distinction between blue and green. When shown a circle with 11 green squares and one blue, they could not pick out which one was different from the others — or those who could see a difference took much longer and made more mistakes than would make sense to us, who can clearly spot the blue square. But the Himba have more words for types of green than we do in English. When looking at a circle of green squares with only one slightly different shade, they could immediately spot the different one. Without a word for a color, without a way of identifying it as different, it is much harder for us to notice what is unique about it. So before blue became a common concept, maybe humans saw it. But it seems they did not know they were seeing it. If you see something yet can't see it, does it exist? Did colors come into existence over time? Not technically, but our ability to notice them may have.
-Kevin Loria

Over the last 70 years, American animal and plant breeding has focused on yield, pest resistance and appearance — not flavor. The pleasure of an ingredient’s taste did not seem to have practical value. The national Chicken of Tomorrow contest sponsored in the late 1940s by the grocery chain A.&P. Chickens were bred and judged for uniformity of size, volume of breast, hatchability and feed efficiency. Their taste was not considered. The story has been repeated with tomatoes, strawberries, broccoli, wheat, corn and more: all bred for size, speed of growth, pest resistance, shelf life, appearance — not taste. In nature, flavor never appears without nutrition. Flavor means nutrition. A Chicago pediatrician named Clara Davis foster-parented 15 babies in 1926 who’d never been exposed to ‘the ordinary foods of adult life’ and for six years let them eat whatever they wanted, in any order, from a list of 34 foods including water, potatoes, corn meal, barley, beef, lamb, bone jelly, carrots, turnips, haddock, peaches, apples, fish, orange juice, bananas, brains, milk and cabbage. They chose balanced diets — sometimes strange ones: One child ate liver and drank a pint of orange juice for breakfast. Their preferences changed often. Another child, who had started off with rickets, was early on given a glass of cod liver oil as medicine. Over the course of his illness, never encouraged, he drank it 'irregularly and in varying amounts’ of his own free will until he was better. This unconscious wisdom has been subsequently studied in goats and calves, showing ­repeatedly that if the body can make nutritional connections via physical feedback from flavor, it will be a good nutritionist.
-Mark Schatzker

There are sounds our ears cannot hear.
There are things our eyes cannot see.
There are our flavors tongues cannot taste.
There are scents our noses cannot smell.
There are objects our hands cannot feel.

It makes me wonder are there things being spoken to us we cannot hear? Things before our eyes we cannot see? Flavors that go un-savored? Beautiful scents that go un-enjoyed? A reality that goes un-touched?

Are there messages, signals, that are being expressed that our senses cannot interpret?

Are we looking in the wrong places, or in the wrong ways at this reality?
What sort of language does God speak?
What sort of form does God take?

Are we missing her? Is she right in front of us and our eyes can't see because we don't have the correct vocabulary? Our ears can't hear because our brains have closed off all sounds but our language? We can not longer taste the goodness of God because we have turned the world away from God's values and to our own: size, speed of growth, pest resistance, shelf life, and appearance.

Are there more light spectrums?
Are there different sound ranges?

What we humans can perceive is very, very limited. Microscopes and telescopes are still limited to the filter of our eyes. An X-ray must be printed, converted, to a form our limited lens can interpret.

Sounds outside of the range of any organism.

What sort of wavelength would a spirit appear on? What sort of range would a spirit speak on?

Wore It Deep - The Tree Ring

07/26/15

Yesterday was Brian's last day in Manor de Tibet. Tomorrow is Ellen's last day. This ends the two years of the four of us living together and the four years of Brian and I living together. I have moved all of my stuff from my room up to Brian's room, thus making it officially my room.

Kepler-452b

"...religion will contort to accommodate a new reality...They will create contorted justifications to support this view, cite a few passages of the bible that could mean anything, and declare victory."
-Jeff Schweitzer

and the debate goes on. This is religion in my time. This is why the pews are becoming thinner and thinner. Someone shouts proverbially to the crowd in an article and the crowd shouts back in the comments. All of it exhausting, none of it productive.

Marriage equality is passed and the religious contort, evolution, and so on, and now possible life on a different planet...the religious contort. The crowd is already justifying angels as aliens...

All of it is so exhausting to me and all of it is affecting my beliefs. I'm certainly not an atheist because I will not put my faith in the arrogant pride of our day's smartest humans. History has proven that to be a sandy beach to build a house upon.

But I don't know if I am a theist, not only because archaeologists haven't found much to back up religious claims, but also I'm having a difficult time finding a theist role model. Someone today who isn't a hypocrite or doesn't look exactly like the rest of this culture's celebrities clawing for fame and power.

Everyone is looking to this reality for evidence and proof of the real reality and it makes me frustrated, grieved, and exasperated. I want to surrender out of fatigue.

But the curse of it all is my heart will not allow my brain to settle on a side out of apathy.

I refuse to be a theist simply because I hope that is the way existence works.
I refuse to be an atheist simply based on what humans have discovered thus far.

I'm certainly no agnostic because I do believe truth can be known.

One of these paths is correct there either is or isn't a God and life after death. Agnostics have found a way to build their house upon the fence...Not something I'm interested in doing.

The God I want to believe in, the God I want to put my faith in is not the god of the gaps. God is not the answer to questions we don't yet know so we put God there as a place holder until science has an answer and we justify and move God.

The God I want to believe in, the God I want to put my faith in is the God of truth. The God of a reality that when compared to this reality reveals we mortals are but shadows and dust, shadows and dust.

I don't want my God, my beliefs to constantly be questioned as the defendant. More and more when someone says they are a theist the only thing the other party has to ask them are questions of evidence and defense.

This is not what being a theist is about. The focus of the scriptures and of God's heart is that of love, justice, mercy, forgiveness, grace, generosity, hospitality, honesty, and so much more. To be a theist is to live a life of freedom and sacrifice.

That is what I read in the book. But what I see is debates, arguments, and the need to be right.

It makes me want to scream in proclamation:

God does not exist, I believe in God!

maybe that will be my statement of faith. Maybe that will be my belief. That is my religious affiliation.

God does not exist, I believe in God!

What do you think about that Jesus...or more importantly, how do you feel about that?





The Tree Ring - Tunnel View

07/12/15

The Christian message of salvation can best be summed up in terms of sharing, of solidarity and identification. The notion of sharing is a key alike to the doctrine of God in Trinity and to the doctrine of God made man. The doctrine of the Trinity affirms that, just as man is authentically personal only when he shares with others, so God is not a single person dwelling alone, but three parts who share each other's life in perfect love. The Incarnation equally is a doctrine of sharing or participation. Christ shares in what he is, in his divine life and glory. He became what we are, so as to make us what he is. St. Paul expresses this metaphorically in terms of wealth and poverty: "You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ: he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that through his poverty you might become rich." Christ's riches are his eternal glory; Christ's poverty is his complete self-identification with our fallen human condition. In the words of an Orthodox Christmas hymn, "Sharing wholly in our poverty, thou hast made divine our earthly nature through thy union with it and participation in it." Christ shares in our death, and we share in his life; he "empties himself" and we are "exalted." God's descent makes possible man's ascent. St Maximus the Confessor writes: "Ineffably the infinite limits itself while the finite is expanded to the measure of the infinite."
...Christ's suffering and death have, then, an objective value: he has done for us something we should be altogether incapable of doing without him. At the same time, we should not say that Christ has suffered "instead of us," But rather that he has suffered on our behalf. The son of God suffered "unto death," not that we might be exempt from suffering, but that our suffering might be like his. Christ offers us, not a way round suffering, but a way through it; not substitution, but saving companionship.
-Bishop Kallistos Ware, "God as Man," The Orthodox Way

Dodging pain and surviving as long as possible isn't the goal of life. Comfort isn't living.

To live is to love and to love is to suffer, but to suffer among. To suffer with.

Solidarity.

To live is to love
to love is to be with

To experience with
To share in

Boundaries are a good thing
Limitations are a good thing

It is good that I will one day die.

mewithoutYou - Chapelcross Towns

07/09/15

I've been struggling with doubt for such a long time. I have suppressed it but I'm getting so tired of it. I feel torn and confused.

I have the head of an atheist but the heart of a Christian.

The older I get the harder and harder it is for me to keep the fire. To keep the faith.

Reasons I doubt:

It seems not only the scientific world but even the Christian world has accepted that the universe is millions of years old if not older. It seems that evolution has become fact. If these things are true then humans came from a single cell organism in which case we are no different than any other life on this planet and thus we have no souls. If we did have souls at what stage in evolution would our animal evolutionary grandparents developed the soul? Or when did God put it in that being?

Next we have the flood story which again there seems to be no evidence for, not to mention the difficult logistical hurdles of two of every animal on an ark.

Brian would tell me he doesn't believe any of the stories of the bible are true yet they hold within them truth.

During my trip to Egypt I learned from a very educated guide that there seems to be no documentation of any Israelite slaves and the ancient Egyptians were very good at documenting all of their history.

Next we have Sodom and Gomorrah some say it was destroyed because of homosexuality, some say it was destroyed because of a lack of hospitality... Our court system prevented same sex marriage bans nationwide. There are many loving and kind gay Christians, even pastors...

Fast forward to the birth of Jesus, there is no historical documentation of Herod ordering all children under 2 to be killed. There is difficulty lining up the timelines of the census with Jesus' birth.

The letters of Paul talk about Jesus returning in their lifetime.

Visiting Rome and seeing all of the things they have added and claimed and said with little to no evidence to back them up. They name the three kings when there is not even evidence there were only three. They claim to have the steps Jesus walked up to see Pilate. They claim the wine and bread actually become the blood and body... some of the things are almost blatantly made up.

I guess what I am trying to say is that it feels to me like science says something and Christianity bends and molds itself to fit within so as to not be proven false. Or it seems the church will invent things to calm the congregation's doubts and fears.

Watching Christians hold tightly towards the sin of homosexuality then quickly back pedal as the culture shifts has been difficult to watch. The same goes for the battle about teaching evolution vs intelligent design both of these have happened in my life time. I've followed both and it's been interesting watching the Christian leaders bend to the culture.

I guess it makes it hard for me to believe these things when it seems no one really truly believes them either. To listen to my seminary friends tell me Paul didn't write some of those letters, there are more books that were kept out of the bible, Maybe Solomon never existed, God didn't create the world in 7 days. No flood, no exodus... My brain wants truth and I'm tired of hearing the Christian defense of "well in the context... if you look at it this way...what they meant to say was...in the context of the time...it was written for these people in this circumstance..."

Even watching how happy my divorced friends are. Isn't divorce supposed to be bad yet here are people healthier and happier because of it...

Everyone has sex before marriage with multiple partners... sometimes they even have healthier marriages than those who wait.

Christianity feels more like an exhausting debate to argue people into agreeing with my beliefs to validate my religion.

Reasons I believe:

The things Jesus said are so true and so wise, how could an uneducated labor worker 2000 years ago be that wise? Why would the disciples be tortured and murdered defending something they knew was a hoax?

Why are humans so different from the rest of the living creatures? Why is Earth so unique and full of life? Other planets given the same amount of time should have spawned life that could exist under its own circumstances. Earth has life that can live under water, out of water, in darkness, in light, in heat, in cold, every inch of this planet life has found a way yet on all other places we can't seem to find any and life is so hard to sustain.

If there is no God, if we are just evolved animals then Hitler could be justified to rid the race of the inferior such as the mentally handicapped or the physically handicapped. Survival of the fittest.

I believe in hope.
I believe in love.

There must be something after this life... how can all of this simply end?

Where did this big bang come from? What if we are wrong about our science?

I hear countless stories and books about people being healed by God.

I believe the bible holds deep truths but how can it be simply written by men yet be so true?

Rest, peace, forgiveness, contentment, all of these things seem to be so true even to this day.

following what Jesus taught still seems to give the most life, meaning, and fulfillment to humans.

If there is a God then everything we do has such deep meaning. Then it matters to buy fair trade. It matters not to step on others to get what I want. It matters to free the slaves around the world. It matters to connect to the earth to care for it to tend it to love it to not see everything as resources but rather beauty and art. Everything has such worth.

So what do I do with all of this?
The head and the heart.
Faith and doubt.

How do I open the bible and start to pick and choose what to believe? Homosexuality is ok now so what they meant in the bible was...
Divorce is okay under circumstances so what they meant in the context was...
Women can teach and are actually becoming smarter than men so when Paul talks about women not teaching he was only referring to...
When Jesus cast out demons he was only healing mental illnesses...
The creation story is merely a love poem...
Jesus didn't mean an eternal hell he meant the trash pile outside of town...
The whale didn't really swallow Jonah but the heart of the parable is...

What is left of this bible? What are we doing? Then I look at the church and I see something so one dimensional. Sing first, then communion, then teaching, then pray and go home... punch in, punch out rate the preaching based on how entertaining it was...

I find it hard to pray. I find it hard to find value in prayer when I doubt God exists. I find it hard to worship. It's hard to see what church has become. If God's will should be done then why should I pray for my will? His is better than mine.

God I want to believe. I long to be a Christian! I want You to be here, to listen to the cries of the suffering. To see the widows and orphans and love them so deeply. I want to know you protect the homeless in their tents. I want You to give life to my friends and enemies after death.

How do I get back on track? How do I know You are real. How do I know what to believe?

God forgive me for my struggle. Forgive me for my doubt. How do I believe? Lord help me believe.

I don't want a convincing new Christian movie
I don't want another powerful worship song
I don't want some convincing sermon
I don't want a prophetic word
I just want You. I just want to know that You are here, That You are truth.

Help me.

twenty one pilots: Doubt

06/25/15

Me vs Mountains

Bea hasn't talked to me since Monday. I see her post on IG, I see her respond to comments but nothing towards me. She'll be back tomorrow. I know I sometimes seem like a pessimist. But I need to vent these nervous feelings somewhere, and Of course, I turn to You, here.

Bea has often threatened the thought of moving to Colorado. It makes me anxious and nervous but if she omitted the thoughts from me I feel ignorance would only make it worse.

I've told her I'd move with her. But as this week has progressed and I've felt this neglect I've been thinking a lot. Waiting for her to text back, waiting for her to call as she has promised but never did...

I would move for her, would she stay for me? I'd never ask that of her but the heart of the question remains. Would she live in a place she didn't want to in order to be with me?

Am I too far in to something that may not be evenly balanced?

The more conversations we have about the mountains the more I feel her desire for a change of address more than a desire for my company. If I moved with her would I ever really know?

I don't know maybe I've been thinking too much awake in bed. Maybe I've been burned in the past one too many times but this is starting to eat away at me.

I've been thinking about how many times she and I have broken up and how many tears the two of us have shed at our parting. I've seen her cry but never over the loss of me.

I see her having the time of her life out in the mountains. Me sitting here paranoid...the last thing she'd like to hear after one of the best weeks of her life is her insecure pessimistic boyfriend complaining about mountains over himself. A talk like that could be enough to drive a woman straight into the mountains and away from me.

She's been spending the week hiking long trails alone with guys I've never heard of before, yet she complains of my relationships with Krystal and Sealscott both of which are engaged to other guys.

The more I sit here missing and waiting for her and the more I see her enjoying her time hiking mountains posting pictures with other guys while she refuses to publish our relationship...the more nervous I get.

I've only wanted to be with her for the past three going on four years and she has always told me she's had feeling for her ex and now that she wants to move away from Ohio...

am I too invested in this thing? She says she loves me an awful lot and with strong consistency...

I gave her my virginity, I waiting while she went back to her ex...twice, Now I'm contemplating moving away from the state I love, from the people who know me to chase a woman who wants mountains... is this stupid? Am I going to get hurt? Would she be happier without me?

She talks a lot about marriage being oppressive and out dated...

I don't know God am I a blind romantic? Does she feel the same way? Am I going to get hurt again? What should I do? Am I just freaking out? I don't know...I'm glad I have a place to vent this stuff so she doesn't have to defend herself or know how insecure I feel.

I want her to be free. I always have but the more invested I get the more her freedom affects me. I don't want my pain to hinder her freedom. If she wants to be with me I want it to be what she wants and not out of guilt or duty.

We'll see what happens. This is my only life. And this is how I am living it.

Life - Sleeping At Last


it began with a whisper in my ear, "I think it's time."
suddenly all we held dear was on the line
as your heart, measured in mountains, fell and climbed.
“you're okay, you're okay, you're okay. we’re okay.”
amen.

06/21/15

"Why did you do all this for me?" Wilbur asked. "I don't deserve it. I've never done anything for you."
“You have been my friend,” replied Charlotte. “That in itself is a tremendous thing.”
—from Charlotte's Web by E. B. White

. “Are not all lifelong friendships born at the moment when at last you meet another human being who has some inkling (but faint and uncertain even in the best) of that something which you were born desiring, and which, beneath the flux of other desires and in all the momentary silences between the louder passions, night and day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for, watching for, listening for?” Travis and Brian, I love you two. I can not attempt to put a value or appraise the worth of our friendship. Yet I feel the necessity to express that which the three of us take for granted every day of our lives. The two of you are woven deeply into the tapestry of my life. Our life is a breath, a shadow, how rare it is that we exist. I am not guaranteed time on Spaceship Earth with you two. I’m thankful I can express to you, however poorly, how much I care about you two. It’s weekends like this that help to take a moment and say all of the things I feel but never express. I’m proud of my two friends and their masters degrees and I’m honored to be a part of Brian’s ordination. When I look back on the sum of our friendship I see how much we have grown, yet how young we are. We will not know how much time the three of us will have together but I can say now I am inexpressibly joyful for the time we've had. God is love and I feel a taste of that love, that secret thread, within the two of you. “There is no language for what we've seen, Only the sweetness that bends us to our knees, And all of these fumbling words To explain what it means, But our hearts were buried deep in the sand”

A photo posted by Adam🌱 (@zmorris93) on Jun 20, 2015 at 8:57pm PDT

I love my friends. They prevent me from becoming homophobic, racists, transphobic, they show me the heart and love of God. They help me when I am down. They are there when I'm lonely. They add color to my life.

It's scary to think how quickly life can end. Or even how fragile mental health is. Each second with my friends is so amazing.

I've been thinking a lot since Friday night's masters party about this stuff. I have always known I have great friends but I don't think I've ever really understood how amazing it is.

For many, friendship is more meaningful than familial ties. And yet it is our least codified relationship, with no legal standing or bureaucratic definition.
-Gregory Jusdanis

What makes friendship so unique is what holds it together. There is no friendship license from the court house. We are not born in to our friendships. They bond is completely voluntary on both sides and remains and exists solely by the free choosing of both friends. Friends are the people we truly pick each and every day of our lives to love.

“Then as he had kept watch Sam had noticed that at times a light seemed to be shining faintly within; but now the light was even clearer and stronger. Frodo's face was peaceful, the marks of fear and care had left it; but it looked old, old and beautiful, as if the chiseling of the shaping years was now revealed in many fine lines that had before been hidden, though the identity of the face was not changed. Not that Sam Gamgee put it that way to himself. He shook his head, as if finding words useless, and murmured: "I love him. He's like that, and sometimes it shines through, somehow. But I love him, whether or no.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

06/14/15

This past week I talked to Krystal about the LGBT stuff she's been learning in her counseling classes. It's just so new to the public. It will be interesting to see how our children respond to the subjects. I think about how different I am from my grandparents school of thought. I wonder how much different my children and grandchildren will be. I was born in 1987. My children will be shocked that gay people couldn't get married when I was in my twenties even. My children will be shocked pot was illegal.

I have to help Bea move today so that's all I can write.

06/07/15

Call me Caitlyn

This whole week I've been thinking about transgender people. I have so many questions, thoughts, and opinions but I am not allowed to express myself. If I openly express myself I will be labeled as 'transphobic'

Drake Bell tweeted "Sorry....still calling you Bruce." and the man received an extreme amount of hate. This confuses me so much. The main focus of all of these human rights movements is to eliminate hate, eliminate bullying, and embrace acceptance. But then I see when someone disagrees with their opinions and ideas the same hate they fight against coming from their mouths.

It's as if hate isn't being eliminated but rather it is changing form. In the past if you were anything but heterosexual you received bullying and hate. Now if you do not instantly embrace and accept anything and everything you receive the hate and bullying.

Is that better? Is it any different?

Shouldn't we always fight hate with love. No matter from which direction it is coming from? If you view what someone is saying as ignorant then the best way to help that person see or to help that person change their heart certainly isn't from hateful angry rebukes.

Whether it is an ignorant person hating an LGBT individual or an LGBT person hating an ignorant individual. The result is still the same. Hurt. and no change.

In the past sexuality and gender-related slurs use to be the hurtful thing you could say to someone now it seems as if being called homophobic or transphobic has replaced that. The point isn't which one is right or better. I guess my point is that both are hateful hurtful terms. By both sides treating each other this way I lost respect for both sides.

I know as a heterosexual white middle class man I can never understand what it is like to be in any minority group whether that be gender, race, culture, sexual orientation but as far as I can I can kinda wrap my mind around the gay community. But this trans community really confuses me.

The gay community says I am a man and I am attracted to men. I understand that. I actually respect that for the honesty amidst all of the social pressure against it. But the trans community says I am a woman..but they aren't.

This is my ignorant transphobic opinions speaking that if I expressed outside of this letter to God I would receive much hate and angry for but I feel the need to express myself and I know God that You are love and You accept me no matter my thoughts and feelings.

If you are born a man but you feel as if you are a woman then you are a man... If you want to act like what our cultural norms for a woman are at this time in history that is fine. If anything the issue isn't the physical body of the individual the issue is how restrictive and limiting our cultures ideas of gender roles are. Why can't a man wear a dress? Why can't a man be named Caitlyn? Now I don't know what it's like to feel like a woman but be a man so I understand these thoughts are ignorant. But they are my thoughts and I need to express them because I'm confused.

If a man decided to tell everyone he is a woman and makes everyone call him a woman's name that doesn't make him a her. That isn't what being a woman is. Even pumping chemicals into your body and having surgery. Is that all that being a gender is? The whole idea feels very delusional. If a man wants to cross dress I would say we should lose the term and simply say the man wants to dress. Why do we have to label certain type of clothes as for men and women? What are clothes but thread and fabric. Is one arrangement of the thread more masculine or feminine? No, it's all just thread its all meaningless we are the ones who give it meaning and we are the ones who can take that power away.

I think the strange thing for me is when Caitlyn came out we are all suppose to erase that person's past. That person is no longer Bruce. That person no longer has a past. We are all suppose to ignore and forget where they have been and where they are coming from. That feels delusional. And if feels like we are supposed to enable that delusion and if I refuse I am hated and called transphobic. The GLAAD website says:

For some transgender people, being associated with their birth name is a tremendous source of anxiety, or it is simply a part of their life they wish to leave behind. Respect the name a transgender person is currently using. If you happen to know a transgender person's birth name (the name given to them when they were born, but which they no longer use), don't share it without that person's explicit permission. Sharing a transgender person's birth name and/or photos of a transgender person before their transition is an invasion of privacy, unless they have given you permission to do so.

But that isn't how life works. We cannot erase our paths. It is how we became who we are. It is our story. It doesn't sound healthy. It isn't truthful. It isn't reality.

Perception is reality.

Is perception reality? Is that how we as a culture are suppose to live? We should treat people how ever they want us to treat them whether it is true or not? Putting on a dress, changing your name, and taking hormone treatments does not make you a woman. That is the reality. That is the truth of it. But the reality doesn't seem to matter. Caitlyn is Bruce. That is the reality. But that doesn't seem to matter.

I think this is the most difficult thing for me to come to terms with.

A gay man says he is a man and says he's attracted to men. I understand that. That doesn't seem to be delusional at all. In fact I respect that more than a gay man who tried to date women in order to fit in. That isn't the reality of the situation.

But people don't want to hear the word no. People don't want to be told you can't and you aren't.

Our country says you have the right to live however you want to live and be whoever you want to be. I guess I need to get in line with that. If a man wants me to call him a woman I guess I need to respect that no matter what the reality of the situation is.

But God, I feel like You want us to live in our limitations. I feel like You want us to come to terms with the reality of our lives. We worry about the effects our limitless cultural mentality is having on our planet like climate change, food scarcity, monocultures, pollution, cancer. These are all results of us humans not accepting the 'no' or the limitations of our reality.

I feel one day saying the word 'no' or 'can't' will be the worst thing you can say to another human. But boundaries and limitations are what makes us human. They are what makes life...life.

One day we will all die. This is a truth that no matter how much we don't like it or fight it, it will happen.

I think to wrap up all of this phobic ignorant close minded thoughts I have I will say this. We all have the right to our own opinions and we all have the right to disagree but in so doing we should always be loving and respectful. Humble and honest. Although I do not understand all of the ways people want to live in this country/this world I will always be respectful and humble in trying to understand and learn to live together in love. I will not hate those who disagree with me. I will not hate those who are disrespectful or hurtful. I will never treat someone with hate no matter how much I lack understanding for their lifestyle choices.

No matter if they are rapists, murderers, terrorists, people of different faiths, people of different races, people of different sexual orientation, people of different ages, I refuse to hate.

Elijah Aaron - Lover's Prayer

05/31/15

We made it through the pregnancy scare.
We made it through the Colorado road trip.
Now it has surfaced that her friends rather than being supportive and encouraging are constantly reminding her of the past and disrespecting her.

I love her so much. It's hard to see the weight on her shoulders. I see more and more how important being a part of community is. I see the affect of unhealthy neglectful community.

My prayer life is shit.
I know I wrestle with doubt but there are certain things that seem to tether me again and again. Things that cannot be denied by my heart.

Prayer matters.

I can't explain it more than that. When my prayer life is on point my quality of life is very high.

Nor does evil consist in being transient, made to decay. There is nothing wrong with the tree dropping its leaves in the autumn. There is nothing wrong with the sunset fading away into darkness. Evil consists in none of those things; indeed, it is precisely the transience of the good creation that serves as a pointer to its larger purpose... Evil then consists not in being created but in the rebellious idolatry by which humans worship and honor elements of the natural world rather than the God who made them... Turning away from the worship of the living God is turning toward that which has no life in itself. Worship that which is transient, and it can only give you death... Redemption doesn't mean scrapping what's there and starting again from a clean slate but rather liberating what has come to be enslaved. And because of the analysis of evil not as materiality but as rebellion, the slavery of humans and of the world does not consist in embodiment, redemption from which would mean the death of the body and the consequent release of the soul or spirit. The slavery consists, rather, in sin, redemption from which must ultimately involve not just goodness of soul or spirit but a newly embodied life.
-N.T. Wright, "What the Whole World's Waiting For," Surprised by Hope; Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church, pp 93-108

God help me stay focused on You the creator and not in anything else that has no life in itself.

You're the Judge, set me free.

I want to pray to you daily. I want to focus on You the giver of life. I want everything I do to be through You. To be life giving and loving. That can only be done with You. You are love. You give life.

My life seems to be, not falling apart but maybe losing direction. If You are my true north then my compass lately has felt like its spinning. Like I can't seem to hold the arrow steady to find You. Like I'm losing my bearings. If life is a journey then You are the map. The less I look at the map the more lost I seem to find myself.

I'm confused what I stand for. Or if I stand for anything at all. I know my lips move but does my heart and actions line up? What a terrible thought. To live in denial. To be delusional. To think I am one thing but to be something entirely different. I want truth.

Truth is love.
And God is love.

I want my life to tell a story. I want the story to have direction. I want to be able to look back at my 20's look back at my youth, look back at my life and know that I told a story that was true. I'm learning as I go that truth cannot come apart from You.

And prayer is how I find You.
my prayer life is shit.
my compass, my map, my direction, my story...it's starting to feel like it's turning to shit.

help.

twenty one pilots: The Judge