summer

okay, first, let me apologize for the huge gap between writing, i have, to say the least, been busy.
praise God, i got another part time job, so i'm working 50 hours a week, but i can pay the bills, and maybe even go to a movie once in a while. exciting stuff!

i suppose we've gotten to the point in the summer where most people take a deep breath, and get ready for those last couple of vacations, maybe plan a barbeque, go down to the river, take a casual drive. heck, maybe even take a nap. we don't have much on our minds, other than trying to enjoy the weather while it is sunny, 'get some color' on our skin. wear our bathing suits. see what other people are wearing. maybe we buy an air conditioning unit to keep the house cool. we sit in the shade with a glass of water or a beer or something; there is more ice in the cup than there is of whatever beverage we were going to enjoy. you can finally turn the nob on your cars heat control all the way over to A/C HI and just sit back and let it cool your skin for a moment. you stop worrying about your hair, 'cause you know its gonna get messed up while your driving with all the windows down.
the leaky roof is less of a priority now. your heating bill is non-existent. reading a book sounds very relaxing. maybe you'll turn the fan on and sit for a few hours. jazz music is nice in the summer.
maybe you have a friend with a boat and they invite you over to go for a cruise on the lake, or to go waterskiing or something. you can work in the yard late and still have some sun left to go for a jog. you can't get very far without smelling a steak on a barbeque.

yeah, we've been blessed

enjoy your summer y'all

yeah, could i get some peace with my fries?

i was walking down the street the other day, listening to some cool tunes on my even cooler mp3 player, smoking one of my favorite pipes, and enjoying the few quiet ('cept for the music) moments i had, and watching the sun set. while i was walking it occurred to me that this feeling of 'calm' wasn't ordinary. in fact, it was just plain strange.
now bear (bare?) with me for a moment.
i have found that i never tend to enjoy a moment as much while i am in it. take the current case of me walking for example. i can probably look back now with more fondness of that moment than i was actually experiencing while in the moment, make sense? right o'...carry on.
so with that in mind, i must ask 'why?'
why do i count the days of vacation i have left?
why am i always looking forward to the next event? next 3 events?
why is contentedness looked at as anarchy here in the States?
why do q-tips feel so good?

strike that last one. although they do feel good. its like a massage for your brain.

i guess i just get myself all worked up. its hard to do what psalm 46:10 says "shut up, and know that i am God." (for the record, it actually says "be still," not shut up. but you get the idea.)

later

City

beyond the place where the horizon ends
there is a city that few can see
where time and space collide and blend
and are taken in the deep

the sun goes dark next to its Light
the stars but blackened spots
and we gaze with trembling souls upon
the city of our thoughts

a place like this we cannot imagine
the greatest architect could not scheme
but it was built by a simple Carpenter
built for you and me

i'll sit in peace i've never felt
my only cares are Him
forever and forever
the time we'll have within

but till that time i must stand firm
i'm here to sow and plow
so if you wish to go there ask
and i will show you how

nice backyard...

i live (currently) in a pretty nice neighborhood. nice houses. nice cars. nice people (usually) tending nice yards. its all pretty much...nice. at least it looks that way.
my roomate/landlord bought a house on a corner lot of this particular subdivision, its right near the street, so it has a yard bigger than most of the other houses in the neighborhood. this leaves a lot of square footage to be taken care of. mowing the lawn, pulling weeds, moving branches. mowing the lawn again.
the funny thing is, the entire neighborhood has this 'my lawn must be perfect' mentality. i could break out my golf clubs (if i owned golf clubs) on anyones yard, and be perfectly happy to practice chip shots into the gutter or through windows or something. anyway, the point being everybody takes really good care of the front of their house. take note said the front of the house.
not too long ago i was doing some weeding and general clean up in the front yard, when i had the sudden compulsion to drop what i was doing out front, and move to the backyard, er..."backyard."

now i don't mean to put a slam on the house i live in or its yard, it is all much nicer than anything i've lived in before, but i couldn't help but laugh when i went back there. it was like a graveyard for plants.
there were skeletons of small firs, photinia corpses, and dead dirt everywhere. along with busted clay pot headstones marking the burial of some obscure bulb, faded plastic bins turned rose coffin, and i'm pretty sure an old Christmas tree too (not ours). the place was a bit of a mess. a bit dead.

it took me a second to take it all in. as i walked through it i was careful where i stepped; i was barefoot, and one of the first things i stepped on was a clip of nails for a nail gun, rusted and left over from the deck remodel. as i walked through it, i got curious and took a peak over the fence at our neighbors backyard. i'm not sure if i was surprised or not. i think it was a combination of 'WELL THAT EXPLAINS IT' coupled with 'WHAT THE?'
their backyard was the exact same, in its own individual way of course.

i was a bit shocked (but not...?) everything i saw from the road looked good, but the backyards (which you could not see...easily) were butt ugly man!

sound familiar?

later.

pee-etry

charlie was a brave young lad
he never shed a tear
but he a hellion through and through
mischief ear to ear

his parents tried, all in vain
to inflict on charlie punishment
but if repentance were money and he were in debt
charlie wouldn't give a cent

at long last his parents gave up
charlie thought the battle won
but as time will tell the story ain't over
till fate is good 'n done

the worst he'd been was on this day
charlie took his final stance
but since he'd held in all those tears
charlie promptly wet his pants.

heavy on the dark, easy on the light..

underestimation runs heavy in christian communities. we tend to give the benefit of the doubt to our own strength, forgetting the power of the one who fights agains us. i see it daily in my own life, and in the lives of other christians.
it starts with those little white lies: 'its not that bad, eveybodies doing it, you won't get caught, you're only going to do it once.' the atomic bombs that were dropped on nagasaki and hiroshima during world war II were not that big. but their effects were.

firt off, we have to give satan some credit. he's pretty good at what he does. he's quite the networker; he has organized an entire hierarchy of demonic slaves who's only job is to wreak havoc on our lives, and to maintain our singleminded, conforming, selfishness. satan twists truth into lies, rapes what is righteous, and distorts what is holy. and he knows just how to keep us from seeking Christ.

a personal issue in my own life revolves around a job i have just recently agreed to take as a construction manager. it would pay well, considering my lack of college education and experience. that sounds like one excellent opportunity, and it is, IF i don't get caught up in making money, and IF money isn't the end-all.

americans today are decieved in thinking (this is my opinion by the way) that somehow WE are the church and that God spends most of his time on us. i don't think that is true. partially because of His omnipotent-ness, the fact that he is not bound by time, and the fact that we here in the states spend much less time praying, thinking, fasting, and just plain praising Him. yes we are blessed, and yes there are hundreds of thousands of christians here in the states: but we are also the most complacent. happy just to sit on our butts once a week and play church, while trying to meet the grueling expectations of a rich culture the rest of the week. a culture, mind you, that is tended by satan.
i'm sure you've heard the phrase that the devil's best trick was convincing people he did not exist. yeah, i think that's pretty accurate.

now obviously God has blessed us, but what God has blessed us with, Satan has made into an idol. just as Satan turned the Law of Moses into a stumbling block for the Pharisee's, so has he turned the material blessings of the Lord into a Golden Calf for us.

Pray that you are not decieved by thinking you are the most important person in your life. You are not.

mark

i wear this mark upon my skin
it shows just where i came
a sinner once a sinner always
the story is the same

but then His marks trumped over mine
His with pure blood spilt'
and now my mark is covered over
and 'so the proof of guilt