A Series Of Confessions: Scrooge, a Christmas Wish, and Music of the Heart

This post is in a series of posts; to understand The Reason(s) for these posts please click the hyper link.

I am scrooge when it comes to Christmas. Not Christmas the actual celebration but rather the consumerism, the craziness, the crazy family, the hoopla, the feeding of the American "Me, Myself, and I" complex, and so on. The day that comes from the Lord coming to bring "Peace to Earth" causing craziness and greediness that makes black Friday shoppers turn stampedes and even death. In addition I hate Christmas music and decorations happening before Thanksgiving and in October rather happening in December. In addition the holidays always bring out the best or worst of every family and my crazy family is no exception... i almost dread holidays because of family and coordinating around everyone else's schedule, pleasing everyone, buying presents... the holiday just brings stress to us and we are the 1% of the world that has money and more than half the time we want more than we have, are disappointed with what we received, or just down right ungrateful for our blessings.

Whatever happened to "...Good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger." (Luke 2:10b-12 ESV, emphasis added) What happened to silent night, peace on earth, good will towards all men, and all that jazz? Christmas is not what it used to be; we went from Peace on earth to stabbings over a toy, what is wrong with people. SO BAH HUMBUG to what we call Christmas, the most egocentric-commercialized holiday in the US.

So my Christmas wished is two parts:

1. That the True meaning of Christmas will come back and take over this shadow of the holiday; that people will love each other, reach out and help their fellow man and love their neighbor as Jesus, God loves us.
2. That I will actually grow closer to God, this year has been crazy and here I am again not knowing what to say other than what Relient K says in a song:

And with this Christmas wish is missed
The point I could convey
If only I could find the words to say to let You know how much You've touched my life
Because here is where You're finding me, in the exact same place as New Year's eve
And from a lack of my persistency
We're less than half as close as I want to be...
and I, I Celebrate the Day
That you were born to die
So I could one day pray for You to save my life~Relient K

 Finally I have been obsessed with the band Needtobreathe. they have two songs that have just been speaking to me so i want to share them so enjoy:

These Hard Times:

Something Beautiful:

A Series of Confessions: O me, O my...

This post is in a series of posts; to understand The Reason(s) for these posts please click the hyper link.


Well in spite of "not having anything to post at the moment" I will post something.: A reflection if you will and a prayer. I had finished reading a book two months ago called O me of little faith by Jason Boyett. Also, in chapel on my campus there was a great speaker/pastor. He had spoke on counting trials, pain, and our "thorn in the flesh" pure joy. These two sermons with the addition of the book have caused me to think again. To think about how we as Christians who grew up in the church could be so hypocritical, lukewarm, cynical, and outright doubtful of things. I am one of those Christians; I am a bit cynical; I have doubts at times; I struggle and fail. Yet dispute all of this I am still Loved by God, one of His children, and a Christian. I'll put it this way, I am a passive-aggressive rebellious child of God, who every once and a while needs a reminder of the fact of the matter is still a Christian. This is kinda one of the reasons I want a Tattoo, but until that day comes I have been writing on my wrists with pen: on the left it says "Forgiven" and on the right "Loved". This allows me to see them and be reminded constantly that I am Loved and Forgiven by God and I am his; especially during the "face-palm" situations I have. I need to remember that I am a sinner saved by grace or how my pastor put it today in church, "I am a recovering hypocrite." 


So in light of that last paragraph over this past school year I have noticed some trends in my life and here are some of the findings. I find that when I am in a routine, getting enough sleep, low stress, and so on I tend to be a better person. I tend to deal better with people, and not be fake. I hate being fake, it makes me feel like I am an actor playing this character rather than a human being, living and breathing outside of the theater. It takes Shakespeare's quote "All the worlds a stage, And all the men and women merely players:" to a whole new  level. I almost feel like the actor in me never turned off. I have also realized that when I don't get sleep and I am stressed, I don't spend time with God and if it is is mediocre at best. At this point I start  depressed, cynical, and for lack of any other term, "Blarg." I need the very friends I push away and shut myself in a dark place away from others. I then feel alone and unwanted and unloved; I start to compare myself to who I want to be or to others and become a shell or a ghost of who I am and who I want to be. 


I Deal with these feelings of depression, being unloved, alone, and unwanted even in a room full of friends or people I know. I am human, broken and afflicted living in a broken world and both it and I have been marred by sin. Yet there is Redemption and Reconciliation. I am not alone at all; I am not unwanted or unloved. For One can never be too high to not need salvation and love nor can one ever be too low to receive salvation and love.


Dear Father,


You are great and mighty, you have laid the foundations of the earth and are the "cosmic-glue" that holds everything together. You know my heart, my deeds, and my thoughts and yet you love me anyway. Thank you for that. Thank you for your Son and that he died but also raised again that I too could be raised up and be apart of your Kingdom. I Pray for all those in the south who have lost their homes, loved ones, and livelihood. I pray for the pastors, allow them to care for your sheep there as you would. Please let the Christian Community rise up among these hurting people and show them Your love and Your Kingdom. "Lord, may Your Kingdom come and your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven," and may I be apart of your work.


Love, ME 

Hugs and Home Wanted...

"If home is where the heart is
Then my home is where you are (my home is where you are)
But it's getting oh so hard
To spend these days
Without my heart" -Relient K

As usual I have started with a quote, how cliche; o well. But this is how I feel; I am just so out of it,

So I have come to the realization that I have three or four "homes" but no home or a place to call a home. I feel like the man from the movie The Terminal, a man with country  recognized by anyone just living in a terminal of an airport waiting to go on with my life and have a home again. Let me explain, I went "home" for thanksgiving to be with family and returned "home" to school.  Over the Thanksgiving break I went up to camp my "home" away from "home" and had fun. Yet, I have no home to call home. If I am not making sense and just rattling on I apologize but this is what is going on. I find I only have one true Home, that is Heaven, and I wish I was there so badly away from this horrid place called earth, the shadow of what it should and could be. Yet I don't have the heart or the will power to do anything to speed up the trip to home; I am a wuss and care to much about those who I would hurt if I went Home. They do say that the home is where your heart is, and mine is in fifty different places and my mind in a million more, the only place my heart is and longs to be is Heaven and it is getting hard to live this heavy heart and yet living without it at the same time. I spent a night over a friends house where it seemed like their life was "perfect", now I know no one is perfect but I wanted that feeling of the family, that I kinda wished I always had when i was younger and I moped for a while.Ugh!

The best way I can express this frustration is by this:

I am a cesspool of emotions, contradictions, and hurt, 

Love, hate, hope, lies and worth;

Fighting for a way out, but no way is found.

Thus it just tosses and turns and causes distress,

Sleepless nights, self-pity, and stress.

Sleep come to me and let me dream this away,

Till this storm passes or forever and a day.

 I just wrote this; wow, I haven't written poetry in forever and I feel slightly better now. I want to love and be loved but want to be shallow and not open up. I want to be part of a group but separate myself. I am that guy who anyone can talk to about their problems but share my own, who tells himself he is a part of the group even though he feels like he is on the outside looking in whether or not he is, and the guy who wants the spotlight but wants to be left alone, who wants to stand and yell and curl up on the floor and cry.I am the guy who is what he is and accepts it, and wouldn't change a thing and yet wants a different life.

I want to express all I am feeling but everything can be put into words or I just won't let them out yet. I am taking it day by day, but I will say this " I want my mommy!" and I need a hug.

Lacrimosa, Lockerbie, Life, & Loneliness

Let me be my cliche self and post a couple quotes and a song:

It is some relief to weep; grief is satisfied and carried off by tears.  ~Ovid

Heavy hearts, like heavy clouds in the sky, are best relieved by the letting of a little water.  ~Antoine Rivarol

Tearless grief bleeds inwardly.  ~Christian Nevell Bovee

Lacrimosa by Karl Jenkins 

As I have been alluding to but never really  saying is I am going through pain and grief for someone who is not yet dead but will be. I wanted to cry but couldn't, I wanted to deal with it but didn't know how. Until tonight (11/6), I let myself cry, a flow of rain to form a river to cleanse my heart. I went go see the STP, Senior Theatre Project (the Capstone Project),  of the week presented by two friends of mine. The show was the Women of Lockerbie. A story of grief, pain, death, faith, and healing. It spoke to me, it did and it just opened the flood gates and made me laugh, booth needed to cleanse my heart and let all the festering emotions out that i couldn't because i didn't have an outlet for them or a reason for them to be expressed. After the Show I wept bitterly and freely on the shoulder of a friend as she hugged me and played mother, she was good for that. I thanked the cast for the outlet and expressing through their art what I wanted to say and how I felt.

Life, like the show must go on as the weeks went, days bleed into each other, sleep came and went, not always there for me, so waited for it as I wondered the hall, after rehearsals and homework and the avoidance of homework. Caring more about those around me who are hurting than myself, for they needed someone and I could get some healing from the helping of others. For I am to Love God and Love Others, as my theme is going for the year and probably the rest of my life. Yet, I needed to heal again, waiting for death to come is a hard thing to prepare for towards the end of a semester, when the person who will die is loved and was supposed to spend the holidays with you. But I want pain and suffering to end for him, but it still doesn't change that it will hurt and does hurt now. My Friends are the greatest, rallying around me and caring for me, asking how I am doing, and praying for me. which Reminds me Prayer is amazing; it allows me time to be with God and talk with him and pray for others and myself. As my crazy life continues I need to be grounded and holding fast to the Rock. But even with all this comes Loneliness, and I am never actually alone. I am surrounded by people, but i feel cut off. I feel like I am just floating in a sea of faces, lost, confused and forgotten. It is just a feeling but it happens to come up just when it would hurt the most. So, I have to remind myself I need to reach out to people who care and want to help... so I did and got Kitty therapy from a 6 week kitten named Indy and it made my Sunday so much better because i just released a lot of stress which lightened my burdened heart. Yet there are other thing that hang heavy on heart which I need to deal with before thanksgiving.... but that is another post.

I feel Better, and I have to Run to class. But As I am in Production week for a Show and I try to deal with things as well as Invest in those around me, I will try to stay strong, and as i always tell people, " Just Keep Swimming".