black and white

A word on seeing things in terms of absolutes.
I am at a loss to reconcile with, or even fathom, the idea of truth being anything less than absolute. Something is true, or it isn't. Conditions and circumstances and other variables may change, but there is truth in the midst of all of it. Believing otherwise doesn't change that. My ability or lack thereof to prove something true does not affect its truth - or lack thereof.
So if it can be agreed that truth is absolute, then seeing reality in terms of black and white is not a bad thing, in and of itself. In fact, it's the ideal. Why, then, are we rankled so by those who do?
There are multiple factors, many related to human nature (an unsavoury subject, to be sure), but I won't focus on that. I think it's safe to opine that what we find so irritating is not the concept of seeing in black and white, but rather what seems to be an infuriating tendency to ignore the gray that seems to completely dominate our perception of reality.
If you take a colour photograph and run it through a photocopy machine, you will produce an image that is comprised almost entirely of varying shades of gray. And yet it really isn't. There is no gray. There is nothing at all there except black toner and white paper. But you need a magnifying glass to see that. In other words, you need to lend your eyes a power that they do not possess in and of themselves.
Those of us who claim to know and be known by Christ are called to live and proclaim truth. If we are going to accomplish that, then we need to avail ourselves of His power to see details and patterns and contexts that we could not possibly comprehend in our sadly limited human view. If such power is not ready to our hands (or eyes), then we had best trust Him to use it and stay out of His way. I am convinced that moral relativism is one of the greatest obstacles to the knowledge of God in our culture, but I cannot blame people for running screaming into its arms from people who claim to be divinely appointed surgeons, yet run amok with scalpels while wearing welders' goggles.
Just because something is true doesn't mean it's the right thing to say at any one point in time. Jesus told those closest to Him, who had abandoned all life as they had ever known it to follow Him, that He had many things left to tell Him that they weren't yet ready for (John 16:12). I believe that He knew exactly where each of them were regarding spiritual growth, or He trusted that His Father did, and waited until the right time to reveal those things, knowing that to do otherwise would have destroyed their faith, and perhaps their ability to ever recover it.
If our ham-handed, insensitive approach to giving away Truth drives people away from Him, we are not only failing, we are working for the enemy. We had best learn this, and fast. Humans by nature are fallen and rebellious toward God. Every one of us started out that way. We can't afford to snuff out the tiniest spark of openness to Him.

games

I could stay here the rest of my life
I could be happy, never be lonely
I don't need to go looking for misery
I could surround myself with my props
Playing my part, getting caught up
In a game, some game, that anyone can play

I could be proud of things I have done
Pretend I don't have to try to be someone
I could say that I've done it all before
I could get wiser, I could get jaded
I could remember, I could just fade away
In a game that anyone can play

I am so proud, I don't have to try
Never a need to justify it when
People say "Hey I was important too"
Memories go to reinforce
The things I have done, for better or worse
It's a game that anyone can play

Just when you think that all your answers are so right
You'll fade away and disappear from sight
The ones who said you're great will find another way

I could be sad, I could be lonely
I could still have some friends if I only
Didn't play the games I had to play
I was important when I was cool
Now it gets lonely playing the fool
It's a game that anyone can play

- Husker Du, Games

punked

so, mirror boy, what do you know of love? who do you think you are? if love is of God, why aren't you moving mountains? a tree is not known by its noble silhouette against a sunset sky (retch), it is known by its fruit. to hell with your poses, produce something for once.
you are pissed off because you were exposed as a rank amateur, no less a psychic vampire than those who molded you in their unholy image. you need to be needed and can't offer others the same acceptance you crave when they don't fit into your Pollyanna constructs. you bleat of love but deny it to others when they even look like they might be thinking of straying from the very path you can't even stay on yourself. you want them to embrace real faith but what the hell is it doing for you? if this is so real why does it die inside you instead of transforming you and drawing others to it?
how does anyone stay so naive in the face of so much reality?
so what will you do about it now?
my guess is the same old nothing.

I'm sorry, you were saying?

...ya know, every thought that flits through dies before it can be caught. It gets piledriven by the one behind it. Can't keep up. Read comments on the Glenn Beck rally and saw red, wanted to charge out with some ringing manifesto of defiance in the face of hate and division. Watched Shadowlands with Lisa and wanted to capture something about the importance of living and not hiding from pain, how nothing at all in this life matters if it's not centered in Christ and radiating His love outward from ourselves. Wanted to, to, to...oh well.
I do believe that I just may have followed the mirage of a transformed heart into a desert that I will probably not see the other side of. Try though I may, I am not going to change anything. All the drive and passion I ever had, every heart's cry *retch*, every yearning that threatens to explode my ribcage, is birdshot against a battleship. The truth doesn't need my telling it to still be true. Which is good, because my grasp on it is tenuous at best. God will just have to be God without my help. I'm sure He's up to it. And He could not be blamed for being happy to have me out of the way.
Nothing. Nothing at all. It was fun trying to matter, but we all gotta grow up.
It still hurts. Shut the hell up. It hurts. Your point? It hurts.
I hope that not one single person ever takes anything like this to their own heart. Don't ever listen to me.

showtime

This is one of those times when I can watch myself burn without a care in the world. No anger, no depression, no overblown sense of betrayal. Just looking through a warped lens and losing my grip on what straight looks like. And not having the energy to figure it out.
Where did I ever come up with a sense of purpose or right? What the hell do I know? Who's counting on me to get them through anything? Help as good as any I can offer is falling from the trees. I need more than damn near anyone. These pathetic words are the most profound thing I've done in weeks.
I'm good at doing what I'm told if the teller has a right to tell. Not so much if they're just being a prick. Living? Different story. Forging ahead, dreaming (gag), bringing inspiration to light and form, all that's so lost to me I have trouble believing I ever had it. I exist. So does a mushroom.
I'm not even feeling much of anything about it at the moment. Fuck feelings. They change and morph and bait and switch and tell me nothing except how far off I am from any mark that ever meant anything good. Process them. Why?
I feel (there's that goddamn word again) very much like leftover matter from a failed experiment. Oh well.
But I do indeed miss knowing that I mattered, even if what I knew was false. If truth wants to destroy me, let's be done with it already. Stationary target right here. Light me up.

lighten up

Life unwinds like a cheap sweater
but since I gave up hope I feel a lot better
and the truth gets blurred like a wet letter
but since I gave up hope I feel a lot better - Steve Taylor

Hope is a lot of weight, and one wonders if it's worth carrying. This tiny world I inhabit cannot possibly be worth all this struggle, yet a larger one would choke me without a sound. I think it should.

I just wanna know--am I pulling people closer?
I just wanna be pulling them to You
I just wanna stay angry at the evil
I just wanna be hungry for the true - Steve Taylor

Hungry - check. Terrified of the hunger's object, but hungry. Angry - check. Impotent and aimless, but angry. So much for the pulling.

The kid never learns. Ever. Everyone else is so much better. Really. Too bad the admiration hurts like it does, otherwise it's be a wonderful distraction from character bankruptcy.

If He loves this thing, then He can have it.

*click*

thy name is desire

There is not enough hate in Hell for you, or for myself for being so vulnerable to you. You are the one constant I know, a perennial backdrop of torment and taunting. Your derisive laughter echoes from my earliest hours to now. Every moment of joy or so-called triumph you unmask as a snare, just another height to get knocked down from. And I am stupid enough to get back up believing it will be different this time, chasing the mirage of hope farther into a void where nothing is real but pain.
You know exactly what I need, you know I'll come back so it doesn't matter what you do to me. Your timing is impeccable. You wait until I show some faint glimmer of courage to take a step toward whatever you're dangling in front of me, then you pull it away and it's still my fault. It's always my fault.
We think we know what love is, what good means, what we were made and meant to do and have and be. Love and good and purpose are whatever the guy with the gun says they are, unless someone stronger disarms him. Who's going to disarm God?
I feel invincible in this citadel of hate, but it won't last. He will either bitch-slap me back into submission or give me another fix so I keep chasing the mirage. Either way I'll come back, but what does that make me? And what hurts is that I know He is good and I'm not.
I doubt very much I can forgive Him for allowing me to exist. People say God doesn't make junk. I say He makes anything He wants, and does whatever He wants with it. I only wish I didn't care. I deserve all His hatred, and yours. I wish I could be and deserve better, but what do my wishes have to do with anything?