What Was It?

I have the presence of something absent,
the wisps of dissipating veins,
a fog so subtle you cannot mark
when it is not.
When is a wave just a current?
A noise just a wind?
Is the ache of something standing
or something rightly ripped away?

Some Thoughts on Earth Day

Can I be honest? (I think I heard you say yes.) I do not believe that man has created the warming of the earth. Everyone knows Al Gore does not believe it either, just like we know that he did not invent the Internet. He is a businessman and a good one too; he helped create a world-wide scare that has produced billions of dollars worth of profit. I do not dislike the man for his endeavors, I think he's rather good, maybe ethically he could use some work but who is perfect.

The earth is pretty large, do we really think that we can have such a great impact on it, I mean humanism is one thing but dang. Besides, our options as far as 'going green' are more like 'going backwards:' all those batteries that last only 5 years in hybrid vehicles are made of highly toxic materials that are very harmful to the earth; the light bulbs that we have been demanded to use have more mercury in them than the planet of the same name; the wind and solar harnessors could keep a pot of water boiling for a year if they combined all their powers like captain planet's followers; besides, most things that are being done are replacing people with--AH!--robots and just like a person in the boom of the machines a century or so ago, I protest and say I wont wait around while computers take-away my job! Maybe the Terminator movies were not too far off.

I love the earth, but I do not worship it: I am a created thing and it is a created thing, God created us both. I do not mind leaving around a carbon footpath for others to follow me by, and I do not appreciate people telling me that I am destroying the earth.

As much as this present generation is for their 'rights' and speaking for the inanimate objects that they feel need a hearing, no one has considered the thoughts of the very things that we feel are unpleasantly 'suffering'--I cannot bear to rightly call a floating piece of ice something that is suffering. Did anyone think that perhaps the ice wants to melt. They have been up north for so long, why not visit the islands in water form? Who are we to demand that those chunks of ice stay in that one place, maybe they feel enslaved to the poles and want to get away, maybe they feel like they deserve a vacation, after all some of those things have been ripped off and used by photographers for a long time! And the polar bear; they may not like the cold. Maybe they decided that living up north was not so great, they cannot build nice igloos to live in after all. So maybe we--if we can positively say we are the responsible ones for the sometimes warming of our earth . . . which we cannot--are actually doing these guys a favor, think of the rights of those poor creatures for heaven's sake, can't they have a say?

Think of the irony of this whole environmental movement, it is a slow dictatorship snarling at most of us. I find it ironic that the shift to the earth and all its soulless creatures has, in large part, turned the world's focus off of the previously known as third-world countries and their people. In comparison to environment worshipers there are hardly any great humanitarian workers. Like the UN most people just sit around and go, 'This probably isn't right, someone should probably do something about that . . . but not me.' I do not want to destroy the earth, I am thankful for it, but I do not think I am, at least in the way most think I am.

In the end people do not want to save the earth, they want to save themselves, their reputation, their lives. Businesses bow to the green movement to their mockery because they do not want to lose business; angry and self righteous people--usually coupled together like that--pick up on the green movement so they can think they are better than all those brown-content killers! And they feel justified in calling us names and saying we are evil; the quiet, never-doing-much type is thrilled in joining a community of single-minded people, they can be apart of something 'real;' the guilty folks who never feel like they measure up join because they are extended some kind of hope for their lives; the people who really are concerned with the earth worship it most often. We humans are a mess, myself included and we need big-time help. Saving the earth will not save our souls; condemning others while we look 'better' only condemns our own selves.

Christ, who I follow, is one day going to--shield your eyes--destroy the earth. It is true! But he is going to make a new one that is much better. There will not be suffering and sin or Satan, only real peace worshiping God, the creator of this earth. The only way to be there in his joy is to realize that you are not perfect and have zero chance of being so and that you need a savior. Then believe in Christ, believe he is who he says he is and believe that he has done all that he has said he has done. He is the only one who can take away your guilt and shame; your sin and allow you to go joyfully head-long into your suffering; he alone can give you perfect righteousness before the all-seeing Judge. Which earth are you living for?

You Want Sugar in That?

Today, as in previous days, Americans are having ‘Tea Parties.” No, there is very little if any actual tea in these “parties,” rather they are waving around the same type of flags as were waved in America during the 1770s screaming to our spend-happy government, “Don’t tread on us.” Though I am very happy that no one is really having their life threatened because of this I wonder if the violence of the first Bostonian Tea Party was the main reason it succeeded. American’s are not what we use to be, that is for sure. For better, maybe for worse, but there is no tenacity, there is no resilience, just a whole lot of couch-shouting laziness. “But they are outside and it is raining!” That is exactly how it was some days during our Civil War . . . except they were being shot and they were starving and they did not have real homes to drive back to or new cloths to jump into. I am not at all trying to compare our Tea Parties with the Civil War but I am trying to convey that we are not them, we have a great heritage of Americans behind us but that does not automatically make us great.

Yesterday I was looking at another country whose government was being protested. Thailand is an aesthetically beautiful country but it‘s government is not. People protest against the government and they get killed. This is no rarity as far as the rest of the world is concerned, governments in the Americas, Europe, Africa, the Asian Regions all tout oppressive and aggressive governments. I am therefore aware of how nice it is to be able to go down to the Capital, say mean things to important people, and then go back home. But what would you do if this was not so? What if the American government started “sacking” people because they said something about the government that the government did not like? Friend, the reality of life is that nothing will stand forever, not even a fantastic government. Is your hope in the land that you live in, the people around you, the government over you? I know often my hope is, but think what a silly hope this is. Can the government save you from all diseases, they cannot save anyone from cancer. “But I know people who have gotten medical care” and that is a very helpful thing, but the government can only act as an aide, they cannot themselves go in and cure every one of its citizens, it is limited and it should be. There is only so much a government can do. Why put your hope in something else that has its own hands untied and yet is still unable to save and provide?

Yes, protest the buggers who are throwing money in the fire of their greed, but know that all the social change in the world cannot protect you from life, death, or eternity.

Friendship and Forgiveness

Friends are nice, forgiveness is better. I have truck-fulls of sinning experience. I have gotten angry at God and called him names; I have made up fantasies in my mind about people where they did or said mean things about me and I wanted them dead—all made in the factory of my imagination; I have specifically provoked people by doing things in front of them that I know is hurtful to them—not too dissimilar to a 3-year-old testing his parents words ‘no’; I have neglected to do things that I know, because God commands them, I should do . . . but openly decide they are dumb; I have put my hope in basketball and football; I sometimes worship food; I cuss; I drink alcohol; I smoke; I am arrogant and think I am better than you and lots of times feel like if I was the only person on the planet left, God just did a good thing.

I love my friends, and I’d do most anything for them, but forgiveness is better. When someone hurts me and sins against me I can forgive them; when I sin against them and hurt them, they, if they chose, can forgive me. What about God’s forgiveness towards sinful people such as my self-exposed . . . self? But forgiveness is not around to keep the world a better place. Forgiveness is around because we are and God is. Do you know that fundamentally when we sin against one another we are sinning against God? This is why friendliness—people-to-people--is different from forgiveness—God-to-people. How is it that when I wish my friend would die and that I could have his car I am sinning against God? Because every human is made in God’s very image, so when we transgress against one another we are declaring something about God: he is not worth respecting and loving. Look at David in the bible, the one who killed Goliath. He slept with another man’s wife, got her pregnant and then set-up and commanded the murder of her husband who was faithful to serving David as king and, as far as we know, faithful to his wife. Clearly the sin is against the man whom he killed, correct? Then why would David, from Psalm 51, in his confession of sin and repentance to God say, ‘against you, and you alone have I sinned?’ Friend, it is not that you just thought poorly of your friend or neighbor or the guy who just cut in front of you at Chick-fil-a, you have thought poorly of God in doing so. Our God-damning sins need God-pleading forgiveness. That is why God in Jesus Christ was damned, he willing claimed our sin and punishment as his own and was killed and separated from God his Father. Jesus, as the apostle Paul says, ‘became sin for us.’

I’ll still sin, probably before the sun goes down today I’ll have my own personal collection of new ones. Sure, I will forgive me friends, but there is nothing that can compare to forgiveness from God. The sins I have and will commit all are forgotten by God, for those who believe that Christ died for their sins. Rest assured, you will not be able to bear the weight of life until you have begged forgiveness from God, whom you have in all things transgressed against. God will never be forever lost by those who earnestly seek him.

A Reverse of Roles

It does not take long for one to find a place where our grandfathers and grandmothers are piled together. The ones who have money, or whose children have money, or are too bad off on the whole for anyone not to ignore find themselves in ‘homes.’ Some are apartments, some are townhouses, others are houses set on peaceful lots of land, though found in a gated community. While not vouching for all, most think that this is a suitable place for the elderly to pass their days: quiet, cared for, and under control with some company and the poor girl who has to coordinate all their events—BINGO and cards. There are in fact many who benefit from such a community: some need medical and physical attention that, quite frankly, their children cannot consistently provide. But what about the others? What about the mom and dad who just need help, but not a personal nurse, just a little help doing some things?

Our culture breeds frantic life. If we are not busy living, we’re busy dying. So long as the clock ticks, there is something productive to be done. The high-energy worldview is no place for the feeble. The Survival of the Fittest is well displayed in the business world we nurture. The young in this context are not just the future, they already are the present. There is no ‘out with the old and in with the new,’ for the old do not exist. My 12-year-old niece is better equipped for the business world than my grandparents. Technologies constant reformation makes obsolete the unlearned. Technology, it is obvious, is presently the greatest field of labor. So, in turn, the knowledge of the balding grey-heads is rendered obsolete as well. There is often a lure to treat the old as a child, ‘There, there; go eat your dinner at 4pm.’ It is true that often elderly people are a hassle, they take time, and they cannot do so much as us or to even help us with anything. But what does that say of what we value?

Christians are to think in different colors than society. Instead of basing ones worth on their productivity or perceived contributions to society, we see two things. First, though old and not what they once were, they are still humans, still created in the very image of God, still designed and able to reflect the glory of God with their life. Second, they are to be respected and to put some more stock behind the word respected, they are to be revered. The problem is not that old people’s bodies begin degrading, which we often equate with their value; rather, we devalue the valuable. We close our ears to wisdom thinking we always know more or at least best. The Bible teaches Christian’s to learn from the elderly, for in their long days they have gleaned much. They, in the Christian mind, are to be the pillars of society, the ones looked up to not down on. What about the burdens they bring? We are to love and nurture them as they loved and nurtured us as children—or as they were supposed to. We bear with their stroke-designed attitudes, we help them cut their food, we read to them when they cannot see, we walk with them and wait on them to finally get into the car: we help bear the burden that they own. The wisdom testified by their grey-hairs is to be desired more than a raise. The lessons they hold in their hearts are to be sought after more than reading our next novel. Their wisdom gives us years beyond what we’ve lived. Christian’s are meant to preserve and care for and love and revere those whom society stapled worthless.

'But'

Demonized domains darken the darkest darkness.
Schismed and severed, torn and tasteless;
ruthless is compassionate placed in here.
Satanized sanity screaming for suffering
all the torturous imaginations with unfeeling pain.
Consumptive chaos ordered to confirm
the lifeless existence set to burn.
Nerved shattered in the mornings of mourning moved past midnight.
The fighting and stomach dropping ache of sedimented souls
sorrowing after some sedated sound.
All the twisted dreams played out,
unspeakable agony voiced in muted moans.
Unwished for mutation of the mind;
destroying the destructed and taking their last breath.
The atoms scream ‘CEASE!’ to no relent.
Every moment births new heights of pain unbelievable.
Pricked, goes the life but not enough to kill
only to keep alive for Hell to fulfill.
Always on the fringes of fruitful death
but never to be reached by another step.
Left alive are the hopeless hearts gallowed in their own introspection.
The most terrible tragedies compare as a mouse,
small and soft compared to the lion who claws and gnaws.
Vomitous volcanoes of violence erupt, long ago
everything was given up.
The eye-less agonized groping for death, they see it will never be.

Ripping reality, righteous rays;
the glimpse of hope resurrecting the grave.
The husband haunts & hunts the evil in his rage.
Furious fire furrows his feet.
Anger towards the evil broods his sword.
He gathers those who hear;
The torture-bound dead.
Recompense for the rebel,
His own blood torn, his soul made rubble.
He pierces the darkness to claim what is his
He foolishes the world because their minds are eclipsed.