Simple Words

“Traveller” - Northlane the road will never swallow...

Wed, 01 May 2013 11:10:09 -0400

“Traveller” - Northlane

the road will never swallow my sunrise

If I’m being honest, I lied. The honesty is the lie, and the lie is what I never planned to exchange...

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 10:02:59 -0400

If I’m being honest, I lied.

The honesty is the lie, and the lie is what I never planned to exchange my heart for.

Im the victim?

God forgive me, I know not what I do.

For heaven’s sake, I always knew this wasn’t true.

I’m just doing what I’m told, I followed orders, the regiment was sold.

If thats the promise given to me, its cheap, its worthless and I persisted to believe.

You’re only worth what you touch, and I’m the pauper in Midas’ court, with wise council from the young…

I’ve laid her down to sleep, and the snakes have begun to sing.

Stay classy, stay pretty, as I breathe in the suffocation…

My heart screams “Worthy! Worthy I must be!”, but my spirit is drowning in what I don’t see.

God did you truly forsake your son, did you leave us to bleed with no where to run?

Am I dead? Am I free? Am I still wandering, hoping to sink into your sea.

“Me!”, I call, I bleed…”Just see me! This must be a disease.”

Ecstasy was the drug, and if Alice was a nun I’d hope she would pray for me, because I’ve lost all faith in this fantasy.

The words to pray are lost in the hope to put on the front. I’m the pharisee in the court of His judgment, I am willing to accept what I was sold. He is guiltless, He is charged, and I demand answers. “Can you fix the broken? Can you feel my heart? Truly you are the King?”

I am senseless, I am mad. While Neo took red, I lived in blue…accepting the opiates of a dying world, of men who knew not what they do.

Yet your word pierced the darkness, and the blood dripped from my hands as I began to sing.

I am not the victim. I repeat, I AM NOT THE VICTIM!

I allowed the lie to perpetuate the killing.

“Forgive me for all I do, forgive me Lover I was not true, forgive me Father the creation lost hope, forgive me Brother the prophecy has been fulfilled, forgive me sister for truly your beauty is divine…”

I am not peripheral, I am free. And I scream it, for the first time now I see.

I stand on the nexus of truth, and the mirror reveals who is to blame.
I am done, i am through. The ship has lost its coordinates and I leap…and with grace I allow my self to sink, the salt sets in the wounds of truth in my deliverance.

“Abound in thine mercy, abound in thine grace, accept the the promise of favor, I will not forsake.”

Set the captives free and proclaim the glory…

Your love has come home.

oessa: Wilson Island -23° 18’ 12.91”, +151° 54’ 53.84”

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 01:46:05 -0400

oessa:

Wilson Island -23° 18’ 12.91”, +151° 54’ 53.84”

telle: 13 for 13 this year. Share if you have seen me do one or...

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 20:32:05 -0400

telle:

13 for 13 this year. Share if you have seen me do one or want to!

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Mon, 22 Apr 2013 13:24:47 -0400

yes.yes.yes.

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 13:17:13 -0400

yes.yes.yes.

Cast aside your fear of reality“Dispossession” -...

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 23:31:18 -0400

Cast aside your fear of reality

“Dispossession” - Northlane

Identity: Revelation of the Cosmic.

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 13:05:00 -0400

“You’re such a hipster…”

How often has that been said to me?

The truth is I hate and love that term at the same time.

Through my personal definitions of how I have come to understand how “hipster” is applied…

Why I hate it… Perhaps it is the accurate description of a blatantly ignorant generation that hides itself behind self-enlightenment and technology. No longer do we have to face our world in 3D; we can live in a false and jaded universe. I am my god, and my god serves me.

Why I love it…A desire (I reinforce the term desire here) to be something different than what the world offers. I am lost in the revelation of the cosmic. I refuse to be left to the definition of the world. I desire to be creation in the eyes of the Creator. I am prepared to live beyond the containment of man.

Wow, I think you’re over thinking a forced and antipathetic label…

I’m just trying to give it the benefit of the doubt…and accept something bigger than the label….

The term is given to me to form identity; it is the hope of explaining who I am. You are a hipster…these are your likes and dislikes, these are your perceptions of the world, this is how you present yourself to society.

We are constantly trying to take our world view and encompass it with our relation to it. The root of all identity is the relation things have on our world view; we identify for or against and this create an ideology by which the world should function. However, this can lead to preconceived judgments and incorrect applications.

Example: Going into college I had so many ill-fated and self-guided ideas about Greek life…I pretty much abhorred it. I can say those judgments were wrong and I apologize for those who were have been apart of greek life. However, for a time I just saw it as the social club of college; individuals just seeking shallow validity. I sat in judgment of those who I felt placed others under judgment; yes…the irony….”you are such a hipster” echoes and echoes.

Again, my desire to assert identity on another. The hope to better define my own world versus another’s; critical and set in defining my universe.

Identity is the great search in life…validity; my life is worthy of something. We countlessly shop, sign, promote, and live in our own individual marketplace. It can be through causes, people, organizations, etc.

We see these labels in everyday life…think of the countless advertisement and carousel of identity we offer and receive from within and outside of our communities. There is a deeper hope to control our own universe. We currently live in a world where we want to embrace diversity yet assert that truth must fall within our singular viewpoint.

We desire to assert truth yet claim that no truth can fit on all people…

Simply put, we live in a world of identity crisis.

The church however, does assert truth. However, we assert through revelation.
We point to God as the source of truth, which is revealed (from within) and we are given a model of truth that is responsible and beautiful. It moves outward..not inward. Consumed truth falls into exhaustibility, it leaves power in hands that were not meant to possess it. The Church is to be grounded in revelation, opposite of consumerism (my need).

Who am I and how did I get here?

When man has wandered for the hopes of this world, God has responded with the cosmic…

And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.” ⁴And behold, the word of the Lord came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.” ⁵And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” ⁶And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness. - Genesis 15:3-6

And Isaac went to Gerar to Abimelech king of the Philistines. ²And the Lord appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; dwell in the land of which I shall tell you. ³Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you and will bless you, for to you and to your offspring I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham your father. ⁴I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and will give to your offspring all these lands. And in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, ⁵because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.”

- Genesis 26:1-5

Job reaches the end of his rope, he looks into his past wondering what he could have done to cause all the things that have happened to him. He begs the Lord to end his life, he even asks the Lord to let his body to literally fall apart; that his arms may fall from their sockets….

Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said:

² “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?

³ Dress for action like a man;

I will question you, and you make it known to me.

⁴ “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?

Tell me, if you have understanding.

⁵ Who determined its measurements—surely you know!

Or who stretched the line upon it?

⁶ On what were its bases sunk,

or who laid its cornerstone,

⁷ when the morning stars sang together

and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

(Genesis 26:1-5)

God responds with the cosmic. The great covenant that has been made with God’s people, did not begin or stop with Abraham…even before time existed the children of God were adopted into the promise to fulfill the cosmic.

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image…²⁷So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

- Genesis 1:26a, 27

There is absolute beauty in the story of creation, and this is where identity must start…the story of creation is not meant to be an answer for why but the starting point of what is. God’s beauty is in His revelation…the cosmic revelation we see everyday is that the sun rises, day turns to night, the Earth groans, and the moon and the stars lead us to wonder. The creation is pointing to something bigger; it does not terminate on itself but reflects a grand identity of the creation towards its Creator.

Our mistake to understand the revelation of who we are begins with a linear view of this world. God is only as big as we wish to acknowledge Him to be, and when we fail to see that, we thus fail to understand our own identity. The trinity has been active before time or space, the purpose is grander than our scope of this universe…Let us make…Christ is the lynchpin of what holds the universe together. The vision we must seek is one that moves humanity from the ground to heaven above. Prophecy is the act of revelation, we are a people of prophesy…the church is a body of revelation. When the church is drawn by the Spirit to prophesy it becomes the carrier of hope it is intended to be. As stated before, Abraham was not the beginning nor the end of the covenant.

¹⁰In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples—of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious.

- Isaiah 11:10

⁶he says: “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

- Isaiah 49:6

Christ is the banner of heaven, He is the fulfillment of all things in this universe…when we shrink our view of who Christ is, we shrink our purpose.

¹⁵He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. ¹⁶For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. ¹⁷And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

- Colossians 1:15-17

Paul acknowledges the cosmic of who we are in the first chapter in his letter to the Ephesians . He says, “³Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, ⁴even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

(Ephesians 1:3-4)”.

Christ looks at us and acknowledges our down fall, He acknowledges the wrath of His Father, He acknowledges the depth of His love, and He leads His people into the cosmic…to piece together the fractured.

Jesus reveals himself at the tomb to Mary Magdalene…

¹⁷Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ”

- John 20:17

The familiarity of the old has passed away, Christ the son (flesh) is the Divine Word (spirit) which leads humanity to the Father…He has ascended to the Father to make known to him, “Your promise is fulfilled, your people will reveal Your glory as You have commanded Your servant”. Philippians 2 reveals that Christ’s humanity is killed; His spotlessness through His knowledge of His kingdom, God’s revelation of Heaven, the body of Christ to be reunited to the cosmic.

How often do questions come from us not acknowledging the scope of His majesty and His purpose?

My purpose must be this, it must end here, it must be the validation to this end…

We then view the world to meet our own needs. People then become exhaustible, they fit within our use, they can be consumed, and the point of life gets lost in what may fulfill me…we become the god’s of our universe and blaspheme His sovereignty.

The disciples ask, “Lord how should we pray…?”

Jesus responds, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name, Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

We are to be fixated on heaven, on the cosmic, on His revelation.

How often do we feel trapped by the world? So frustrated with why this happened, why he or she said this, why we feel like we’re running in circles?

Have we allowed ourselves to place our identity in a broken world? It runs in circles and we allow ourselves to accept that this must be it… Yet God reveals something cosmic.

The great lie of the universe is linear.

My testimony leaves me to know that God is in the business of His glory and He leaves us to respond to the cosmic. As Christ we feel the wounds of this world, we look to answer the great mystery of the universe; why and what has gone wrong? God answers through His son…I have a plan and it lies in the beauty of who I am. The creation will not terminate on itself, it will point us to glory.

This is identity.

cosmic; inconceivably vast.

COMFAINATE // A Way To Live Until You Die: "What were you afraid of?"

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 23:37:52 -0400

COMFAINATE // A Way To Live Until You Die: "What were you afraid of?":

comfainate:

Rolling Stone Magazine asked Green Day’s, Billie Joe Armstrong, in an interview about new albums, addiction, and the future of the band. “I’d get this voice in my head: ‘Who do you think you are? Why did you write a song like ‘Holiday,’ you high school drop out?”

We all hear that voice. Billie…

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Thu, 11 Apr 2013 23:36:16 -0400

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Sat, 06 Apr 2013 22:13:30 -0400

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Fri, 05 Apr 2013 22:44:17 -0400

dive.

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 17:59:27 -0400

dive.

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Thu, 28 Mar 2013 19:35:33 -0400

My Struggles, His Beauty: Authenticity in Community

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 12:36:00 -0400

I’ve been back and forth over writing this for awhile. However, I can’t see any other reason not to due to where I’ve been led in my life; a man completely sold that his life is not about himself but rather the greater of He who is in me.

It started with a friend and mentor. As I stood in his office, he looked at me with tears filling his eyes, “I love you because you’re my friend, and I just want you to know that God has done so much and is going to continue to do so. Don’t let this doubt overtake you”.

Life felt like it had spiraled out of control.

“What are you doing God? Why? I’ve been as faithful as I could be, I’ve made mistakes but seriously why do I feel this way? Why is this happening?”

I had gotten into a relationship with someone who I had designed my world around quickly and and uncontrollably; to the point of changing who I was as a person. That world would begin to fall apart and it seemed for one month there was one scarring issue after the next each week; whether it was school, work, or particular relationships. In turn, I became filled with a range of emotions causing an inability to sleep, eat, and quite frankly for a brief time in my life to simply function. My most overwhelming regret in all of this was not seeking proper help…there is no telling what would have happened if I had not had good family and friends to bleed with me. I remember two of my best friends coming to me and just asking, “What is happening? We know this is not you. We want our brother back.”

But the truth is, I didn’t want to talk about it. I looked at all my other Christian friends and watched as good things happened to them, how God was doing “beautiful” things in their life…you know, the “good” Christian blessings.

The core of my emotion? God had not provided with how he was being advertised.

Time progressed and I had stopped going to church. I was still reading scripture and searching, but I had no desire to fellowship with a body of believers, and was borderline thinking of just “living my own life” so to speak, and then the conversation happened with my friend/mentor, ”…God has done so much and is going to continue to do so. Don’t let this doubt overtake you.”

It was not easy, but soon after I found myself sitting in Daystar Church…

This particular Sunday there was guest pastor. He began to tell his story, his calling, his love for the Lord, but that his wife had left him. Growing up in the church I just expected him to bring the story full circle, explain that the Lord worked things out with his wife and then he would surprisingly reveal who she was in the congregation. However, he didn’t… He simply ended with the fact that he didn’t know what direction the Lord was taking him, or why it happened, but that he knew He was walking with him.

I think this is where the core of the body of the believers became a reality to me. We truly are all bleeding and wandering in the desert. Yet, He is walking day by day with us, and its illumination is through his unfaithful bride that He is continually faithful to.

I of all people should know better.

If any of you know my family’s story, I nearly lost my mother when I was 13.

Three times that summer the doctors had come to my father to say, “We’re sorry, we don’t think she will live through the night”.

So many asking, why would a such a “good Christian family” be subject to all this.

My father will confess he found himself on his hands and knees praying each night..and then a revelation from the Lord…

As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. ²And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” ³Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. ⁴We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. ⁵As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

- John 9:1-5

The continual question was, “Why?”

My mother’s response, “Why me? Why not me?! Lord for your glory, take me home if it be your will”.

Luther would call my family’s struggle an “alien righteousness”, something completely outside the nature of God which is used for His righteousness.

The proof is in how such a situation brought my family together, open our eyes to His sovereignty, and bond us towards His will.

We must acknowledge that none of us were put on this earth for us, God’s story is always about God. His beauty, his majesty, his beautiful, perfect, redeeming love.

That summer will probably forever be one of the toughest seasons for my family, but for God’s glory He did not waiver in exemplifying His good works in a world that seems so dead to acknowledge them.

I’m bleeding.
He whispers, “I’m bleeding with you”.

¹⁴And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

- John 1:14

We must acknowledge that the first step in Christlikeness is acknowledging that we are called to live in community; honesty, humility, and vulnerability.

It is my conviction that one of the greatest issue we face as a church is allowing the enemy to circumvent the church; padding the walls of our conversation with that which is “feel good” for the life of the corporate body, and thus isolating us from the church’s purpose in its own community and to a lost world.

“In answer to your inquiry, I consider that the chief dangers which confront the coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, and heaven without hell.” - William Booth (founder of The Salvation Army)

Maybe the mission field here with our church is an ability to pull the plug on the morphine of self-fulfillment and revelation and look truly at what God is saying and doing.

RELEVANT Magazine, in their Dec12/Jan13 issue, had an article entitled “The Hidden Epidemic”. This article revealed that suicide is still one of the leading causes of death in our country, and among faith groups, Protestants have the highest rate of suicide.

Lets recap that…the faith group who has proclaimed sola fide, justification by Him alone, trust in Him alone, community through Him alone, has the highest rate of suicide?

Founder of To Write Love on Her Arms, Jamie Tworkowski states in the article, “It’s easy to feel like being a Christian means ‘having joy’ and ‘being whole’…and so you’re not supposed to struggle with depression or addiction. So many people-even pastors-fake it. We put perfect people on stage, or people pretending to be, instead of people willing to be honest about the fact that life- even life as a Christian- is still a struggle and painful at times.”

Jesus never said this would be easy, but He said He is always present. The church must step back and realize this. Whether its the smallest to the largest of issues, we are called to be vulnerable beings who are seeking Jesus with true honesty. The world is good about taking issues and turning them into a joke to laugh away and ignore…the church is called to face those situations head on without fear or ignorance and with honor towards His plan.

Community is about authenticity.

One of those communities that I found myself in repeatedly was the hardcore music scene…People ask why I am drawn that particular music, and the truth is because of the scene’s authenticity of community.

Levi the Poet, in a blog entitled “Initial Thoughts (pre-course musings on Discipleship)”, he sums up best in how the scene should be described…

“I can’t help but think of this truth in the context of where I have spent the majority of the last four years of my life: the music scene - specifically, hardcore. We talk about the “scene” as a whole. It gives us a sense of identity. We are active participants in the scene, we invest into one another’s lives, we hit each other and all kind of hardcore things, and we feel a sense of belonging. Unity, standing together, brotherhood and local support are common lyrical threads throughout, interwoven on tours, in homes, venues, streets, friendships, etc. I can see a hardcore kid and know that he’s a hardcore kid. Hardcore preachers (which is exactly what they are) exhort audiences to oneness within the scene, and we rally around it, taking ownership as members. It is a passionate, authentic scene.

Point being: communities are pictures of what defines them, and we join based upon what we want to be identified with, or what is enticing about them. The hardcore community is distinct.”

This “scene” is as flawed as any community. However, what is does show is an ability to be distinct in its honesty about the world and how those individuals relate in the world. Personally, it was and is still one of my favorite mission fields; it is a clash of culture, ideas, and viewpoints. People who are vulnerable, open, and honest…Yet it is a place where we all come together to relate. I am honored that some of my best and deepest theological conversation came in a car on the way to a show, at a bar where a show was occurring, or afterwards as me and my friends hung out at a Waffle House or IHOP at 1am.

One example of this personally comes from a band called The Amity Affliction. This past year they released an album called “Chasing Ghosts”. The whole concept of the album is about suicide; lyrics from the perspective of someone who has pondered it, committed it, and from the perspective of friends who have been left behind …its uncomfortable, its dark, but truly honest on the issue. My personal disclaimer to this album is that myself and Amity have very different views on our purposes in this world. I am not in this world for myself or my own glory but for glorification of the grace and mercy that He has bestowed on me. However, I am honored that I and Amity can relate in struggle, in insecurity, honesty, and vulnerability.

The lyrics of one of their songs “Geof Sux” is that of a letter to a friend who attempted to commit suicide…However, personally I relate this back to my conversation with my friend and mentor. That my strength was not in my self but in the community and the love that, even in that moment of conversation, was exemplified through his friendship.

Small clip with those lyrics…

“I found life left in these limbs and found the strength to start again,

I found my heart right in my hands and found relief in all my friends.

Don’t Give Up!”

The author of Hebrews in chapter 12 says, “¹²Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, ¹³and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. ¹⁴Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. ¹

The church is called to authenticity; holding nothing back, holding one another accountable, and being honest about a world who has thrown itself under a false accountability. That might mean coming to terms that the church is to be distinct, but also vulnerable to a dying world. The world is living under the account of the enemy and to hold to world to the standards that God has placed us under is ridiculous. However, as we are commanded in Matthew, we are a city on a hill and we have been called to accept the unloved, the broken, and the confused. Satan is the author of confusion and his confusion will manifest itself into a sense of false comfortability; within and outside the church. I pray that we can be true to our calling, to bleed with others, and to simply say, “Me too”, because this is the heart of the gospel, His incarnation thus nullifies any accusal that He didn’t care or that He chose to act outside our world. Rather, “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross! 9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phillipians 2:6-11).

My prayer is that we live in the way were called, not under some notion that we must have all the deep theological answers to life’s questions but rather we are open to what God has done, and is doing in us. That we truly treat His word as living and breathing, and that His story will be active to those who know they are loved but even more so to those who do not feel His love.

Tears fill our eyes, and His eyes fill as ours.

In our struggle and in the joy He has for us.

Let us take honor in that.

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Wed, 27 Mar 2013 11:53:25 -0400

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Mon, 25 Mar 2013 02:16:52 -0400

"Then with water in my eyes The words began to rise from their place They were beautiful and dread I..."

Sat, 23 Mar 2013 17:29:21 -0400

“

Then with water in my eyes
The words began to rise from their place
They were beautiful and dread
I reached for them and fed on each phrase
They were honey on my lips
Then a bitter twist in my side
I knew they’d lay me in my grave
“Is there no one who could save me?” I cried

When I lost all hope to look
someone took that heavy book from my hands
all its weight they set aside
after they had satisfied its demands
I felt white and black reverse
and the lifting of a curse from my heart
Then like one receiving sight
I beheld a brilliant light in the dark

”

- “Words in the Water” by Thrice

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Thu, 21 Mar 2013 22:39:33 -0400

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Thu, 21 Mar 2013 22:39:22 -0400