Friday, March 28, 2008

2 blessed 2 B stressed

"2 Blessed 2 B Stressed" I think I saw this on a T-shirt sometime ago. I try not to use trite or cliched sayings, but in my tired and weary state, I'm going to use it. It's not just because of mental fatigue, but I'm reporting two blessing at the summation of this stressful week. If you've been reading these blogs then you know that my posting have centered around maintaining my sanity, my faith, and my joy. You would also know that I have progressed, but this past week, it felt as though I got stomped in the chest twice by a big bull elephant. If you don't know, that's stress.
I purposely keep certain issues vague for two reasons: one being this is the internet. I'd like to have a little privacy. Two being I like to think that you might be blessed by the general issues rather than trying to possibly identify completely with my life path. However, in order for you to get this blessing you have to know I don't have any money. As a matter of fact, I owe the bank money.
Early during the week like Sunday, I was getting low on gas for my car. The gauge was reading maybe just above an 1/8 of a tank on Sunday night. I figured I could make it to work Monday. On Monday morning, gauge read 1/4 tank. When I got home Monday, it read a little less than an 1/8. Now an 1/8 of a tank isn't on of the marks on the gauge, so really the gauge is saying that I have a little more than gas fumes keeping it from reading E. Now for the next two days, the gas reading when I get home from work is less than the following morning when I leave for work again. I prayed for enough gas to make it to work this past week. My gas gauge has been working properly, and after I received some money for gas the gauge hasn't been fluctuating in the morning. God put just enough gas in my car every night until I could make it to the gas station with money, so that I could make it to work every morning.
Well, that was blessing number one. Number two is this. After the second elephant stomping or the second time I received news this week that greatly saddened me, I heard God speak to me answering questions I prayed about. Now God doesn't speak to me directly. If He did, it'd probably scare me half to death. But through the counsel of the godly, bible study, sermons, and media dedicated to His service, I've been blessed by the word. Answered prayers always boost my faith. God told me that he is there in the midst of it all. AND He gave me some tips of prayer. I needed the refresher. I don't know how well this is written, so the text may get edited. But be blessed.

Sunday, March 23, 2008

my taco

Last night I was getting irritated thinking about the unfairness of life while preparing dinner. This is nothing new. I've been here before, and I was trying to remember the scriptures in Psalms about watching your enemies prosper while you're making out like a loser. All this was going through my head while I was fixing my kids plates. And it's not that I have any enemies, but it's like "I, even I, am..." the only one who has ever had such problems and such a bleak outlook and been through such things. And the fact is that I know better for several reasons, but like the case with other postings of mine lately, knowing and behaving are totally different acts. So while I'm in this deep mental debate, My son is whining about his taco that is falling apart. Now I'm already irritable, and this little kid is whining about a soft shelled taco not staying together. He's making this sound like when you let the air out of a rubber balloon while stretching the sides of the neck. "Ehhhhhnnnnnnnnn." Now what has occurred is that he started eating the taco from the top like it was a sandwich. When he got to the bottom one side was only barely connected to the other and all the veggie taco meat was in danger of falling out. Now, I'm developing patience, so in half way through biting his head off like, well, like a soft-shelled taco, I let my voice raise a few octaves and tell him, "That's the way it is. Just go ahead and eat it." I mean he ate through the thing all crazy, right? It was at this point that I had an epiphany. Much of my life I have to be accountable for the irresponsible eating of my taco. Of course, I never asked for life's taco, but who doesn't like tacos. I didn't ask for this life, but the only times I'm complaining about my life are when things aren't going right. And while I'm not to blame for everything that is "screwed up" in my life, whining about it isn't helping my life stay together when the filling is falling out. What does help is counting my answered prayers. It's like guacamole on a falling apart taco. You use your fork or your fingers and it's so good that you just eat it however you can. Psalm 42:11, NIV. "Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will praise Him, my Savior and my God."

Friday, March 21, 2008

death before life

Last night the students of Pine Forge Academy put on a dramatic production. It started off with bleak views of life being plucked away unexpectedly by the hands of death. They inserted comic relief to help the bitter message, but the real relief came in the message from scripture that were inserted. The message of knowing that true whatever heartaches and trials we may be going through, God has promised never to leave or forsake us. Accepting Jesus is "eternal life insurance." In the end, we have the "blessed assurance" of His promises of abundant life. It's almost everyday that I wonder if I'll ever really be happy again on this planet, are my prayers just the cries of a desolate pained man, and what I've done to deserve a punishment like this. One of my favorite poems ends with these lines: "It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishment the scroll, I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul." (Invictus- William Ernest Henley) while the poem is encouraging, even imbuing strength, is it true? I feel like life just happening to me lately... I can affect my outlook, my attitude, and my own actions, and that will affect my final destiny. I'm just so sick of life before heaven I don't know what to do.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

From Victim to Perpetrator

I thought I was the victim.
I was hurt, crushed, and often bitter.
And I don't know how I fell
Victim to evils I abhore,
But the blood's on my hands
And the law is at my door.
The warrant was in black and white
And I read it in disbelief.
This can't be for me.
Wrongly accused I sit in my loneliness,
And when my heart was crushed enough,
I see my crimes for what they were.
I don't know if I can ever repay
Or if I'll ever be forgiven
Countless moments have gone by
That I wanted to quit livin'.
I'd give all my strength
To penance if it could possibly be enough.
I give all my prayers that forgiveness can make you tough.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Grandma the Prophetess

Things my grandmothers said that I hold on to:

“You’re going to be a great man one day,” Mother said after mom told her I was an alternate for the school’s Math Counts Team. We all call my mom’s mother “Mother.” Most of us call my dad’s mother, Grandma. Although she and my mom used to say emphatically that I called her “grandmother.” I hold on to this prophecy hoping that through my trying to fit in with the crowd, half-hearted attempts at excellence in high school and college, and personal mis-steps and short-comings that I still have a chance at being a useful vessel. "And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter; so he made it again into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to make." (Jer. 18:4)

“Children always come looking for their father.” Grandma said not speaking to me.
“You think so,” I interjected in a conversation that wasn’t mine.
“Well yes, children are curious to know their fathers,” she replied. I only had one son at the time, and I saw him almost everyday. So I’m not sure why I decided to remember this.
Last week, I left work and decided to go visit my hometown. I couldn’t find my key to Dad’s house, and when I drove by it looked like no one was home, so I went to the next block where my grandma lives. I talked to her for a little while. Then who walks in the door, but my cousin and the son he hadn’t seen for about 12 years. Now that I have a son that I haven’t seen for two, I’m even more inspired to make attempts to communicate with him. A relationship is the goal.
Grandmothers don’t lie. They don’t have to, and they don’t believe in it. There have been times when I figured they don’t understand the situation or don’t know all the facts. But they possess a mysterious insight and wisdom I can’t quite explain.

Sunday, March 09, 2008

grateful

I'm grateful for the opportunity to encourage someone else who's in a similar state. In doing so, my spirits were lifted, if only for a little while.

Monday, March 03, 2008

Star Holes Where the White Gleam Used to Be

Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note - LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka)
(For Kellie Jones, born 16 May 1959)

Lately, I've become accustomed to the way
The ground opens up and envelops me
Each time I go out to walk the dog.
Or the broad-edged silly music the wind
Makes when I run for a bus...

Things have come to that.

And now, each night I count the stars,
And each night I get the same number.
And when they will not come to be counted,
I count the holes they leave.

Nobody sings anymore.

And then last night, I tiptoed up
To my daughter's room and heard her
Talking to someone, and when I opened
The door, there was no one there...
Only she on her knees, peeking into

Her own clasped hands.

This is one of my favorite poems. It has a tone of hopelessness. What is it about the blues or sad poetry that attracts us? It must be the emotions that resonate with like chords within us. How many times has "hope unborn" died? I've been singing "a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught" me. I'm ready to "sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought me."