Melancholy–insufferable, inescapable–has overwhelmed me. No, or is it a fatalistic apathy? In any case, I no longer have the will. The will to what? The will. End of sentence. I cannot finish a book, or season, nor do I possess the drive to pick up a controller or an instrument. Things which fill me with any form of desire or motivation seem fewer and further between. I lament; not for the things I lost, but that I have lost myself. How long can one drift on the vast ocean before the waves claim him? Even in a boat, how can a man hope to reach shore in the midst of the sea with a broken oar on a clouded night, without stars or moon?

Restless in the dark, weakened by the day. Endless hours of labour, isolation in my merciless ruminations, solitude, separation from any relationship of value. Atop all, at every bend, I am met with an inexhaustible supply of obstacles at every attempt to paddle, sail, or swim to the most menial of shores.

Yet in all this, the facade remains fixed. Still I assist others, still I sputter humour, still I carry on basic functions with deceptive efficiency; while in the abyss of my soul I stagger as a frightened child in the dark with the terrors of the night skulking within reach. Pangs of bitterness seize me in contrast to the fatalistic floating I have succumbed to; and fear–always the fear and regrets.

‘What if-s’ and ‘why-s’: steady and cruel as the driving, cold rain at midnight against the edifice of a derelict monument–my monument. Frantic questions of the future sting against my wasted spirit and wounded resignation to the twilight. In the not so distant past, my machinations, exertions, and attitudes all aligned in perfect obeisance to my indomitable, tenacious will. A will and spirit fixed firmly in its course with impenetrable offenses and defenses to aid its prerogatives. This has fallen.

I sit here a husk, withered and whipping in a sharp, subtle wind in the desolation of night; paralyzed, carried by the capricious current ’til either doleful dawn or dutiful dusk descends.

I take offense at the hymn “Unclouded Day”. I fear it vilifies one of God’s greatest inspirations for exaltation. I do, of course, understand the sentiment behind the hymn. There shall be no darkness or threat in that New Jerusalem. The chorus even specifies, “where no storm clouds rise,” but the hymn itself praises that metaphorical “unclouded day”. I believe, however, that clouds should cause us to break forth into uncontainable exaltation of our Creator.

Each cloud is a unique masterpiece; often tessellating into a different wonder numerous times before leaving our sight. I have seen a thousand images in a dozen clouds and never a repeat the next day. Billowing masses which sail across the sky with all the grace of a ship on the sea piloted by a master helmsman. When we reflect upon the form and constitution of clouds, they also defy the norms of natural behavior.

Most wonders of nature may be broken down into mathematical formulas to explain their patterns and behavior–not so clouds. Such complexity of movement, vacillation of form, even transience of any form is a mathematical anomaly. They are a glorious advocate of the Creator’s creativity, personability, ad sovereignty.   

Always waiting for tomorrow. Always waiting for the year to come around. Always waiting for the grass is greener. Always waiting for anything but now. –“Always Waiting”, Stellar Kart

Like the majority of the human populace, I was not happy with 2016. My brother and I actually stayed up to watch “the death of 2016” more so than the ushering in of 2017. I had become so disenchanted with 2016, that I began to implement changes and goals in my life before 2017 even arrived. As I plan, and I implement, and I begin to see some of the fruit from this “recovery year”, I begin to get excited for what 2018 has in store.

By the end of 2018, Lord willing and barring the unforeseen, I will be debt free–aside from student loans, which I no doubt will be paying on until the Lord returns. This will allow me to accomplish two goals in 2018: to travel to Canada and take up jujitsu. I had all my plans (as in rest-of-life plans) and agendas completely eradicated by the train-wreck of 2016, so the positive prospect of 2018, if I treat 2017 with caution and frugality, is revitalizing.

I have found myself, of late, in a general state of anticipation and dread for the present, like the song lyrics above I am “always waiting for anything but now.” Although it is true that I will have to be scrupulous this year and dole out most of my funds to eliminate almost all my debt, this does not mean I should act like 2017 will be a drag. It certainly cannot and ought not be any worse than 2016. I keep saying, “I’ll do this in 2018,” and “that will have to wait until 2018”. Acting as if this year is purgatory. This is its own independent year, separate from 2018, and, thank God, separate from 2016. It has its own opportunities; its own moments of sorrow and joy to be had. There are several things that I can do and look forward to in anticipation of my new life plans taking off in 2018.

For starters, I need to find people to surround me that are of like mind. I have high school friends that are good to hang with, but are certainly not good for deep conversation, counsel, or Christian edification. My friends which are good for that all live 586 miles away. Ergo, I need to seek out people to be an encouragement and keep me on track. That is something that should not wait, and gives me a productive challenge to strive for this year.

I do not often give the reader a direct challenge, but I would encourage everyone in this rebuilding year to look for what you can achieve now, while striving for and anticipating the future as we all recover from 2016.

I have lost it. I have lost the music. My life used to be full of music. I was always whistling, humming, singing, making song references, playing it in the background, writing it, arranging it, performing it, practicing it. The constancy of melody pervaded every aspect of my life. You might say that my life itself had a melody, harmony, and rhythm. Even at low points there was always music playing, or I was playing the music.

But now its gone. I do not listen to music like I used to, nor play it. My entire life, as it were, has been thrown into a cacophony. The only consistent beat is that of my own heart and the pedal tone of daily life, not even a moment of syncopation has graced me.

It is a paralyzing numbness; an apathetically resignation to the defeat and depression that has ensnared me. I have no beat, no conductor to place me back on track, no muse to break anew a melody of simplest composition. I am not even left with pain from the previous tri-tones that sounded ceaseless in my psyche without resolution. I am left with a cold carelessness. The caesura from solace has lengthened to an indefinite period of rest, or rather restlessness. I fear that the melody will never resume. Can I cope with a simple, jaded beat with no tone, pitch, or tambour?

Life was once a symphony of sorrow and celebration. Even the lowest points became moving adagios breaking forth into rondos and revelries. But the compound time is gone, the purpose of the piece is forfeit, the sound reduced to the faintest of pianissimos, if there be a sound at all.

I yearn for some music to return. Even a dirge would be welcomed to the maddening silence which currently vexes my conscientiousness. I cannot say I wish for my beat to cease, but how loathsome its place in the grand symphony be. How weakened and insignificant it has become. I desire that the Great Conductor, the Maestro of maestros, to return to me a melody. He will have to provide the score, for I cannot compose it on my own, nor would I be able to arrange it were He to send it my way.

My mind vacillates with every curve of the road as I shift silently through the waning twilight. I have retreated into myself, distracted and deject, with no conscientiousness of existence beyond the bounds of my vexation. Morose machinations are pulling me further from reality with each bend of the aptly dark hillside. I feel forever lost within the ghastly phantoms of sorrow and fear. Just as these feelings begin to breech my spirit, I am thrust back to the present with all the force and precision of a veteran sniper dropping a target through the mist and fog. The force which has ushered me back into existence with such swift efficiency is the ancient matriarch of the night.

Upon recovering from such a violent re-entry into existence, I begin to ponder. Although I have witnessed many a moon rise, and Lord willing will witness many more, this reliable maiden has arrested my attention this inauspicious night. She is a harvest moon, but tonight she has donned herself with the most brilliant vestments I’ve beheld. Her color is so…alive; as though Van Gogh has lent the night his paints and brush. The brazen disk looms as it rises with every air of regal pomp above the humbled hills. She is so illuminated that the entire sky seems to glow like a smoldering blanket. Clouds and haze are thwarted as they attempt to usurp the maiden’s elegant ascension. Within minutes of her ascent, the clouds and haze begin to fade away—unable to stand before this ethereal effigy. As I bask in her domination, she continues her course across heaven.

I am transfixed, paralyzed, undone by the splendorous sovereignty of this lunar lady. She has remained insufferably bright along her course, though she shed her hue with each step she climbed. As she neared the apex of her throne, her aura transfigured the night sky into a canopy of serenity. As I continue driving under this veil of calm I feel a reassuring presence; as if someone is caressing my cheek with all the form and weight of an elderly woman raising her hand to caress the check of a grandchild departing for a journey, which will not conclude until long after the woman’s passing.

And now I realize.

The celestial maiden, with all her charm and graces, could not be so intimate in her imminence. Her lord, and my Lord, however, could craft such an occasion. The Maker of the moment himself reached across the infinite chasm of my despondency and rescued me from myself. And through his servant, decked in the majesty of her master, is counseling me. I hear Shaddai say, “You know, the real question is not whether you will rise.”

“It isn’t?”

“No. My hand which guides this maiden across the sky is the same hand which guides you through the course of life. My servant may be obscured by clouds and haze, but never is the course lost or altered. So, the real question lies in the rise.”

“The rise?”

“Indeed. Your twilight is waning. The last bit of light from before this event in your life has faded, and there is a night for you to traverse. If you remain faithful to me, you will rise like the moon. The real question is the manner in which you will rise. Will you chose to embrace, for a time, the clouds of despair and haze of doubt, or will you chose to don the garments of joy and grace that I clothed the harvest moon in?”

What is next? What will be? What should I do? What can I do? Where can I go? Who shall I be?

I used to know the answers to these questions with every ounce of my being… but now, an old, persistent visage obscures my conscience. It is an unwelcomed guest I thought would never appear upon my door again—doubt. Not as to faith, for God is unmovable, but concerning purpose and direction in my own life. It was so clear. I saw my reflection sparkling in the pool of purpose and laughed at the world. Life, choice, and contributors outside my realm of knowledge have polluted the pool of purpose, I fear, beyond salvage. Another oasis may hold the image of my destiny, but I do not know the how or what, or even what direction to begin to move in. So I remain here, paralyzed in the fog, straining to regain my bearings, as doubt and fear drain any remaining energy or desire I had left.

I have grown to dread the twinkle of twilight—it hearkens the long, dark night. Dawn may come, but only those that weather the malicious night may gaze upon it. When will this twilight succumb to darkness? When will the encroaching darkness break to dawn?

God hasten it.

I truly lacked understanding.

How could the world be so cynical, so bitter, austere?

The good grace of God is there.

Academics claim that technology is soon to bring the future fair,

And faith in humanity’s ability is preached everywhere.

I truly lacked understanding.

Then it hit home.

Often the day dawns with contemptible feeling;

Work, life, and finance send you helplessly reeling.

You fight to keep positive through life’s mis-dealings–

fight to stay afloat as your head bumps the ceiling.

Then it hit home.

And so I reflect.

Despite your intentions and efforts to fight,

some choose to, or cannot, see the light.

You strive to meet half way or more with your might,

but they have their own fight and judgment of right.

And so I reflect.

Then I grew tired.

I have fought so long and so hard, what for?

Pride in self? Expectations of others? And reasons still more…

Yet existence, like a voracious waterfall, ceaselessly pours,

until I lay paralyzed on the floor.

Then I grew tired.

So I considered.

Will giving up dignity hurt more than the fall?

God still reigns, I still serve him, but the remainder of it all?

My will has extinguished, my pride bowed down—the expectations are too tall.

What is wanted, and what is needed—a crumbling wall.

So I considered.

Thus, I resigned.

Pride, dignity, desire, direction: all casualties in the war of my mind.

I have ceased to strive.

I have resigned.

Matthew 9.13–Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.

Micah 6.8–He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

There is an emphasis in the conversation of the church today concerning the church’s role in a rapidly deteriorating culture. In recent days, it seems the timeless balance of “be in the world but not of it” gets harder and harder with each passing generation. Another equilibrium that destabilizes from one extreme to the other each generation is strong, vocal stances against the sins of the age, versus a wizened, cautious resistance to sinful narratives of the culture. I am convinced there is a time and a place for both.

At times we see Jesus dining with Zacchaeus and gently rebuking Martha; at others, we see him flipping tables and calling Pharisees “vicious broods of vipers”–both attitudes needful for their times and places. But what about the rest of the time? What is the daily attitude to have as we walk in the world but not of it? I believe the two verses above capture our Christ-like, default setting.

It may still be a matter of prayer, Scripture searching, and reflection to determine the appropriate time to “draw in the sand” or “flip tables”, but I see a greater need in the church to discuss the daily attitude we are to display as disciples of Christ.

When Jesus was asked in Matthew 9 why he would be dining with sinners (at the home of Matthew/Levi) his answer begins with the famous analogy of a doctor needed for the sick, but we often miss the magnitude of his next thought: he desires mercy, not sacrifice.

To correctly understand Jesus’ statement, you must take into consideration what sacrifice meant in that culture. It was the demanded price for the retribution of sins. It meant that judgment was being dished out, but instead of you an your neighbor receiving retribution, a substitute was subject to the wrath and appeasement. Sacrifice was a necessary thing (that was the point of Jesus’ ministry), however, the Pharisees desired the judgment be dished out presently. They loved the letter of the law–and one should not associate with sinners. Even if you were not participating in their “heathen-ry”, you would surely become associated with their lifestyle, or at least be viewed as condoning of their sin.

Sound relevant to the controversy today?

Jesus brought them back around to the real issue. Although sacrifice was necessary, the Lord desired mercy. There’s the heart of God! He is holy. He cannot, will not, abide with sin; it will be punished. But the Father does not get kicks and giggles dishing out divine retribution as I fear too many “Christians” secretly (and sometimes not so secretly) do. In fact, God made it clear his desire was that “all would come to repentance”; at the same time recognizing that “narrow is the way that leads to life, and few there be which find it”.

The crux of it reverts back to Micah 6:8. We are to do justice–we, us, ourselves–are to live righteously and encourage such behavior in others through Christ. But we are to also love mercy; desiring as our Father does that people would see the truth of his gospel, which has the power to make them who they need to be, who they were supposed to be, and, deep down, who they wish they could be. This brand of mercy requires patience, no, long-suffering (some language from the KJV need not be update). We must bear with people in the hopes that through our lives–transformed, transparent, genuine–accompanied by the gospel we share, will ignite in them an understanding, prompted by the Holy Spirit, leading to their own Damascus Road experience.

In order for us to be effective witnesses, in order for us to connect with a culture functioning far apart from a Scriptural basis, and in order for us to see people saved in these final days, we must love mercy. We must do justice ourselves and encourage, not haughtily command, such in other. This does not mean we shy away from shining the light on sin; we are, after all, “lights of the world”, but we cannot honestly expect people to exhibit, or even understand righteous attributes unless they have been transformed by the power of God.

It all must be tempered on the anvil of humbleness. Do not propagate hatred and oppressive behavior in the name of my long-suffering and loving God. It is his duty to lay on the conviction and, if necessary, judgment, it is ours to desire mercy, to speak and live the transforming love of God, and walk humbly with our God.

In retrospect, as Christ concludes in the above Matthew passage, he came to call the sinner, not the righteous. “And such were we all at one time…”

(Watch the link before continuing)

The tortoise in this video inspired me. Another tortoise, one he may or may not have been acquainted with was in distress. Seeing that another tortoise was flipped over, the tortoise helped flip the other over. Is it possible that the tortoise would have regained its orientation without the other’s help? Possibly. Could another tortoise, animal, or even human come along and helped instead? Sure. But this tortoise saw a need he could meet, and took action.

This tortoise probably was doing something else. It is doubtful he left his burrow, or whatever, in search of someone to help. He may have even been “busy with other things”–whatever that means for tortoises–yet he stopped and did what he could.

If a tortoise can, why don’t we?

I recently went to the church to grab a flyer that needed 350 copies for our fall festival coming up the 17th. Upon arriving at the church, I had to park in the street because two cars were blocking the drive way–one with a flat. As I got out of the car, they apologized for blocking the parking lot when they realized I was heading into the church. I dismissed it as no big deal, went inside, and got the flyer. On my way out I felt the Spirit saying, “see if you can help”.

Why? I have no extra cash, I’m busy, and they already had help. Nonetheless, I offered my assistance. I even offered to give them my spare (which just barely didn’t fit). I then headed off to get the flyers copied. When I returned, two of the people were still there, waiting for the third person to return with a tire. After I took the flyers inside, I offered them both water while they waited.

Not to bring attention to myself, because normally (like most) I would justify out of the circumstance, but this time, I “tortoise-ed”. Why can’t we all be like that more? To my Christian audience, the Scriptures command we be “tortoises” without excuses.  To my non-Christian audience, most of us will never be the next Gandhi or M.L.K. Jr., but we can all be tortoises. And as the great Gandalf the Grey said,

Saruman believes it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. I found it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay… small acts of kindness and love.

Dragonflies dancing

in the heat of mid-June’s sun

o’er the lily pond.

_________________________

Cool, green overhang

on an open-air structure–

life is beautiful.

_________________________

June’s serenity

is but a hollow visage

of the world to come.

_________________________

The spring flower fades;

however, life continues–

summer flora blooms.

_________________________

The wind of summer–

spark of life in scorching heat,

invigorating.

__________________________

My rest molested!

Oh, the glory of this thought:

No insect in heav’n!

_________________________________________

On a small island in the pond

knotted pine roots spike up to escape drowning

like a peculiar, hallowed place of pagan lore.